Artists sculpts for art's sake

Page 5

Michael Evans has driven for two days to get here to watch and listen and learn all he can at Qaggig. Armed with pen and paper and bespectacled eyes, he's looking to absorb all he can of a culture that has captivated his imagination.

"I retired after 13 years of editing, went deeply into debt, and decided to follow my heart," says Evans, a PhD student in Indiana University's doctoral program in folklore, who hopes to someday be a professor teaching others about Inuit culture.

"I've seen a lot of art, but when I see Inuit art, it just takes my breath away," says Evans, while kneeling beside Inuit sculptor Simata (Sam) Pitsiulak who tells his story.

Pitsiulak, 38, wears a protective mask, while small flints of serpentine stoneware sprayed in his direction by another Inuit also sculpting on the second floor of the Museum of Civilization.

"Everyone used to call it soapstone, but there's no soapstone in Baffin Island," says the resident of Iqaluit. "It's more like marble and some is harder than marble," says Pitsiulak, who did his first sculpting at age of eight.

His father was a hunter and carver, and some of his friends are carvers too, including two whose works he has brought to the show and set down on the mat.

Meanwhile, nestled in Pitsiulak's hands is Sedna, the sea goddess, which he hopes to finish carving by day's end.

According to methodology, Sedna was a little girl mistreated and left behind as they prepared to leave camp. As she reached desperately for the boat, the camp leader chopped off her fingers, which sank into the depths to become animals of the sea.

Thus, in future times, when man was in harmony with the land and sea, Sedna would send such animals so hunters could feed their communities.

Such stories have become the motivation behind a number of Pitsiulak works, as he focuses on carving, what he likes carving best - animals. However it may be a different object, a helicopter, that becomes the focus of one of his important works.

It would be of the helicopter that took away his two parents, both sick with tuberculosis, for two years. When they left, he was only two, but he has never forgotten that time.

The father of six, including one child adopted by his wife's mother, works for

First Air as a passenger service agent. And he insists he will keep the job despite the potential to make a lot more money by just carving.

"I could easily become a full-time carver and make three times more money," says Pitsiulak. "I carve only when I feel like it. If I started carving for money, money, money, I'm not sure what would happen to me."

Meanwhile, despite his desire to carve animals, he wants to start "carving my thoughts, expressing my thoughts, some which are hurtful.

"I don't even want to talk about (my childhood when my parents were ill), but as part of healing I want to carve one of my parents. Their leaving affected my life and I was really angry."

But he also has things to be happy about. Like his four-year-old daughter.

Syzula, whom he loves playing with. Like daughter Julie, 19, whom he says last year was named the greatest female athlete of the north after a history of Arctic Winter Games competitions that has brought her more than 24 medals.

Like his wife, Gela, recipient of a number of his stone carvings and frequent fishing companion when flying off in his two-passenger Pelican.

"I don't want to become famous, but I'd like to be known. I'm known the people who have bought my art, but not by the galleries."