Ulukhaktok, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NT
Helen Kalvak CM, RCA (1901–1984)
The Holman Eskimo Co-operative was established in 1961. World-renowned artists Helen Kalvak, CM, RCA (1901– 1984), and Alec Aliknak Banksland (1928–1998) worked with community priest Father Henri Tardy to establish an artist co-operative to bring in stable income for the families in the area. Seeing the overwhelming success of artists in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU, inspired them to send work to the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council (CEAC) and establish a working relationship with the institution.
Father Tardy noted in a 1978 interview with CEAC member Mary Sparling the work of artists like Kalvak, Banksland and Agnes Nanogak was so exceptional that when they first sent samples to be reviewed by the CEAC, the council believed the work to be too sophisticated for the Inuit artists to have produced without the artistic guidance and influence of the non-Inuit studio staff.
I started making art before I worked at the co-op, helping out my dad and my auntie when I was young doing woodcuts and stone cuts. Gradually they asked me if I wanted to work at the art centre and so I said yes. That’s when I got to work with great artists like Elsie Klengenberg, Mona Ohoveluk, Agnes Nanogak and Harry Egotak—one of the artists who produced the first Holman Print Collections—and other amazing Elders like Peter Palvik and Helen Klengenberg. Those were the Elders that started the stencil printing. They were my role models. A lot of their artwork [showed] stories about the way they lived. And they were really beautiful pieces. One thing I learned from the first generation of artists was that when you create something from the soul, it comes out so beautifully and it [connects with] other people. Those mentor relationships enhance you—in your artwork—and they bring the most beautiful feelings that you have in you, out.
It was incredible to be in that space at the Jessie Oonark Centre [and] to spend some time in Qamani’tuaq and to see firsthand some of the impact that she’s had. There are huge carved stone slabs and all the printmaking equipment, it is so impressive to see as an artist. You can see the evidence of the impact she’s had on the community. To be able to develop some of my own work in that space as part of my residency in 2018, that felt very important. It was an incredible opportunity to work with other artists in the community in this shared space as they work on their own projects.
We made wallhangings and prints. I was learning along with everybody else. I was able to do some stonecut printmaking while there—my first entry point in that medium. It felt really special and appropriate to do that in that building and in that community and to be inspired there. That was amazing. When I left it really felt like people were energized about their work.