Drawing the Past Art Show

Saturday was our big art show! Many of our young artists were there to display their hard work.  As good hosts, when our specially invited elders arrived they were offered tea and coffee.  Friends and family from the village stopped by to check out our drawings too.

Some of us where pretty nervous, others were just kind of squirrely.  After the elders looked around at all of our drawings, we had a chance to ask some questions about life in the past.  The young artists had brainstormed some questions the day before, like...

• How did you tell times without clocks?
• What kind of fur did you use to make parkas?
• Did you ever see women with tattoos on their faces?
• Where did you go to the bathroom before indoor plumbing?

The young artists started out quite shy and were hesitant to ask questions, but later everyone started to relax and conversations started.  We were happy to have Joshua Cleveland, Marie Smith, John Smith, Nick Mark, Annie Cleveland, and John Fox there to share about life in the past.  We are looking forward to continuing to develop our relationships with these knowledgeable people.

The artworks on display ranged from hunting scenes to reconstructed masks, even SpongeBob appeared doing a Yup'ik dance with dance fans and all.

Adrienne Al'aq Sam

(Girl Cutting Fish Nasaurlaq Neqliulria) 

 

Adrienne Al'aq Sam

(Untitled)

Amber Aciuaralria Jones
(A Hunter Looking for a Seal or Getting a Seal)

Amber Aciuaralria Jones

(Doll Irniaruaq)

Cassidy Cacungaq Henry                                            Cassidy Cacungaq Henry

(Doll with Friends)                                                         (Puppy Learning)

Darryl Kisngalria Small Jr.

(Finished Spear Narula Kassuun)

Destiny Ciukaq Sam
(Giving Doll to Younger Sister)

Destiny Ciukaq Sam

(Girl Showing Off Her New Doll)

Helena Angassaaqun Sam
(Dolls... You're Not Alone)

Jawna Quriciq Williams

(Mixed Color)

Jawna Quriciq Williams

(Harpoon Hunting)

Jawna Quriciq Williams
(Super Doll)

Jawna Quriciq Willaims

(Little Man Cingsii)

Jawna Quriciq Williams

(Dancing SpongeBob Yuyaraq SpongeBob) 

Jonelle Assiq Matthew

(Doll with Berries)

Kaitlyn Arnariaq Henry

(Creepy Mask)

Kari Nagtaq Hawk

(Men Hunting)

Kayleen Ciugun Nicolai
(Untitled)

Kayleen Ciugun Nicolai

(Spoon)

Kayleen Ciugun Nicolai

(Spear Point Cingilek)

Leah Kuimumaar Mark

(Doll with Toys Irniaruaq Nuanguaq)

Marissa Jones

(Untitled)

Marita Nengqalria Tunutmoak

(Spear Hunting 500 Years Ago Arrow Points Cingilek)

Megan Acivran Cleveland

(Knife)

Meghan Cingarkaq Cleveland

(Two sides of a Mask Kinaquq)

Mikayla Arnaluk White

(Doll Face Irniaruam Keginaa)

Nikki Cirr'aq Teeluk
(Walrus Necklace)

Pauline Al'aq Roberts

(Fox Hunting Kaviaq Pisurtuq)

Teyana Al'aq Brown

(Untitled)

And our two artists who are young at heart...

Pauline Matthew

(Untitled)

Jacquelyn Graham
(Gaming by Seal Oil Lamp)

Race to the Finish

Everyone is on to their art show piece!  We've been having lots of fun in drawing, but now people are getting serious.  The room was quite today as everyone worked.  From time to time hands were raised as helps was needed to figure out some details on the drawings.  A few people managed to finish their pieces today and started to think about titles for their works.  We are supposed to come up with an English title and a Yup'ik one.  For those of use who don't know the Yup'ik words, we look to Pauline Matthew (our language specialist) for help or are going to ask our parents  tonight.  Titles are hard... a lot of brainstorming is needed to come up with the right one.

Working hard and having fun!

On to the final works.  After practice sketches many of our young artists today got their sheet of paper for their art show piece.  

Here sketching away is Meghan Cleveland, Kari Hawk, Tenaya Tunutmoak, Mikayla White, Christine Wassillie, and Jawna Williams.











Christine Wassillie working on an earring.














Pauline Roberts start on her art show piece.

Materials, Objects & Practices Sketches

Today we were hard at work choosing which material we want to use in our final pieces (pencils, color pencils, or chalk pastels), which of the archaeological artifacts we wanted to inspire our work, and practicing sketches for our final pieces.  Some of us have chosen to draw reconstructions of objects as they looked when they were in use and other have chosen to draw scenes of life 500 years ago.  After we have our practice sketches done, we get a piece of loose paper to start the final draft.

We have also been looking at some books about Yup'ik culture for reference images to help with reconstruction drawings (some of the books we looked at are listed on the references page on the blog).  The historical material from around 100 years ago is very similar to some of the things we have been looking at from the Nunalleq site which is around 500 years older than that.  Pretty cool.

3D Models and Concept Sketches

A batch of 3D printed models of Nunalleq artifacts came in today and we get to look at, touch, and use them for inspiration for our artworks.  We had a lot of fun trying of the Snow Goggles or, what the group started to call, Eskimo Sunglasses.  

 

We were also working on our concept sketches of our final works for the art show on Saturday.  The theme for our works is Life 500 Year Ago at Nunalleq.  In this theme we are looking to do some reconstruction drawing of some of the partial artifacts or put the objects into their context, in human activities.  This requires us to think about the who, what when, where, why, and how of these objects from the past ...

Who used or made them... men, women, children, elders, hunters, shamans...? 

What are they made out of and where did people collect those materials? 

When were they used...daily, seasonally, special occasions?

Where were the artifacts used and made... in the house, outside, in a kayak...?

Why were they made or used... as tools, for decoration, for spiritual reasons...?

How did people made and use these objects?

Each of us is going to pick one type of object or theme to inspire our work.  Today we were just practicing and getting an idea of what we want to do for our final drawing.  And having some popcorn too...

 

Relaxing Friday Afternoon

The weather was beautiful today and made for a relaxing Friday afternoon.  Due to other events going on, we only had 19 young artists today.  This being the smallest turn out so far, but still a great number!  With all of the hard work we've done this week, we decided to take it easy and have a sketching day.  The young artists had their choice of working in pencil, color pencil, chalk pastels or pens.  Just to practice sketching and using the drawing materials, the youth artists worked on whatever came to mind.  Jawna Williams drew a cingssiik.  Cingssiiks are little people, generally with pointy heads or a hat, that live underground and can steal you away if you are not careful (see Fienup-Rirodan 1994, p. 78).  Leah Mark and Nikki Teeluk worked on a Minion.  Here are the two different kinds of little people  :)

 

At the end of sketching time today, we talked a bit about what to expect for the coming week.  Next Saturday (7th March) is going to be our Drawing the Past art show here in Quinhagak.  The next week will be gearing up and getting our final pieces ready.  Artists this weekend were supposed to think about what they would like to put into their final pieces.  The theme of the final works is going to be "What was life like here 500 years ago?"

Jury Picked Artwork

We are so proud of the youth artists who bravely submitted their sketches to be voted upon by their 26 peers today.  The voted selected two works that are going to be on the poster announcing our drawing art show for Saturday 7th March.  The two selected by the group were Kari Hawk's Flowers in Hand and Meghan Cleveland's Kiinaquq Mask.  

 

We had some amazing submissions, but only two will go on the poster.  We would like to highlight some of the runners up as well, for all of their good work needs to be recognized too.

After our vote we started working with chalk pastels.  Very messy, but very fun! We finally got to blend with our fingers and we liked it.  Some of us got a bit carried away, with hands completely covered in color.  After we worked on some of our blending spheres, Jacqui took them outside and sprayed them with fixative so they wouldn't smear.