Inung Nuyaviak

I'm a mechanic by trade. But also, throughout my youth, I was promoting the Inuvialuit culture. My mom owned Nautchiaq Fur Shop. About 35 years ago, the Inuvialuit leaders told the youth that it's a dying culture we have. At the time we didn't really understood what the ‘dying culture’ meant. The ‘dying culture’ they meant was the hunting, trapping, and fishing— and our art. About 15 of us—the youth—took on that challenge.

Myself, over the years, I've traveled across Canada. I've never been over the seas, but across Canada promoting and introducing handicraft like my ‘parkis’ and my mitts and that. But my art was the big thing. And it was pushed through my mother first. And then from there it just kept going, kept going…she kept encouraging me—do this, do this.

Nellie Cournoyea played a big part in my life. She bought a lot of my artwork through the IRC; it was just a bit of promotion and that really encouraged me. And then we went to look at and talked to the Canada Arts Council over the years. They've been telling us, in [Inuit] carving, they don't have any representation of the Western division. ‘Western division’ is Inuvialuit carvers, Gwich'in, and a number of different other people.

Me and Derrald, we rent a shop in Yellowknife, and it's part of Danny Hudson's gallery. He's got a jade gallery there. He's originally from Aklavik, and he owns this gallery, him and his wife. In the middle, we have Martin Goodlife jewelry doing jewelry for lot of different people. And in the back, we have me, Derald and Eli working as Inuvialuit carvers—and we do a lot of carvings, me and Derrald.

All the animals that we carve today are things that we hunt over the years. And then we somewhat learn how the shape and movement are, just from picturing it. And then picturing that same movement as they're running or getting away from us.

Promoting the Inuvialuit art—for us, anyways—it's a struggle, but we're artists and that's what we do for a living. For myself, however, I also have to go and work and find a job. Derrald has taken carving on full-time, that's how he does it. And for myself, I got a mechanic job so I do a lot of different things. And I find odd jobs. That's just art—sometimes art's hard to sell. I don't know as many people as Derrald does, so my substitute is to go and work. But the Inuvialuit history—we had no representation for a lot of years. And now that we're starting to get recognized more and more…we're trying to push the art in there. Representation is really important.

Word of mouth is the best advertising that we have. Derrald just got me into Instagram and a number of different places. He's been promoting in the art galleries.

Advice for up and coming artists…I would encourage them to look at the art, just look around, watch people… the art is all about seeing people. In my view, anyway. When I look at art, it's just the things that I find…the stories, the Inuvialuit drum dancers that you see. It’s the story that really brings out the art because that's how they told their stories, their hunts, their travels, how hard it was, how good it was—doesn't matter if it was shown in the dance. And my art is little different, I use all my hunting; I travel. I use every movement and I like my animals big because I've always seen them in the wintertime. [laughs] It's really, really amazing— the things that we've done over the years, just promoting. Like me and Derrald, we just started teaching students at the shop and trying to keep the Inuvialuit culture. So, we're just doing whatever we can.