Colin Morton

Looking at Inuit Art

1.

Survival’s a miracle

for this chalk pastel on black paper

found rolled in a cardboard tube:

big bear and little man in life-or-death;

a mouth full of teeth, a knife in each hand.

You can see the artist has sewn stitches like these

in bear hide, has eaten the bear

and known the fear of being eaten.

2.

How joyous they look: “Two Fish

Looking for Something to Eat” –

each biting the other’s tail –

the shaman too, dancing in his fish suit.

A joy to be part of all this eating

and being eaten, chasing and fleeing.

More life, they all say, never too much.

3.

“I must eat every day,” says Annie Pootoogook

on video at the Carleton Gallery,

“that’s why I draw pictures.”

What has changed in these Cape Dorset drawings?

“Watching Hunting Shows on TV”

“Woman with Shopping Bags on Snowmobile”

“People Lining Up to Sell Artwork”

– new tools, new ways, the same hunger, fear and joy.

Only the shamans have departed.

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