#Osuitok Ipeelee

[arthistoryanimalia]

#TwoForTuesday:

Osuitok Ipeelee (Inuit, 1923 – 2005) Untitled (Walruses), c. 1977 Steatite, caribou antler; 29.2 x 37.2 x 21.9 cm Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal inv. 2014.234.1-4

[coltonwbrown]

Owl with Plummage Osuitok Ipeelee

[lukegauthier]

[santoschristos]

Shaman Drummer The Magic of Shapeshifting. One of the best ways to connect with power animals is through the art of shapeshifting. In the shaman’s world, animals are kin, an ancient belief reflected in mythology and in animism – the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings. It is a mental world where the seen and the unseen; the material and the spiritual merge. As their helping spirits, the shamans “might use animals, anything that grows,” says Osuitok Ipeelee, an esteemed Artic Inuit sculptor. “It was well known that the animals the shamans controlled had the ability to turn into humans. When a shaman was using his magic he had a real change of personality. When the animals entered into him he’d be chanting loudly; if a shaman was turning into a certain animal, he’d make that animal sound. Once he was filled inside, he’d begin to change; his face and his skin followed."1 

Shapeshifting is more than just transforming into an animal as is often depicted in shamanic accounts and tales. It is the ability to shift your energies to adapt to the demands and changes of daily life. We all learn which activities, behaviors, and attitudes support or hinder our survival and growth. It is a natural and instinctual ability that we all share. The minimal development of this talent is the ability to mimic. We often mimic for the purpose of learning something or to blend in with our social or physical environment. It implies changing one’s pattern of appearance or behavior, rather than just using what you already have. Actors, for example, are known for their ability to take on the characteristics of another person or thing. 

A shapeshifter is one who manipulates their aura to access a higher or inner power in order to grow and learn. The human aura is the energy field that surrounds the human body in all directions. All shapeshifting occurs on an energy level. If everything is broadcasting its own energy pattern and if you could match and rebroadcast the same pattern, then you would take on the appearance and qualities of the thing you were matching. The only constraining factor is the degree of belief, connection, and energy. To experience this for yourself, try the following simple exercise: 

1. Create sacred space as you would for other spiritual work, dim the lights, and sit comfortably erect in a chair or on the floor.

2. Close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths.

3. Call upon an animal that you have an affinity with. Visualize and invite this animal spirit to come into your body and consciousness.

4. Meditate with it. Be open to the feelings and sensations of being that animal. It is not uncommon to be and see the animal at the same time.

5. Simply observe whatever happens for a few minutes, and then thank the spirit animal and release it. 

Shapeshifting to any degree will help you develop a kinship with your animal relatives. Learning to shift your consciousness, to align with and adapt your energies to power animals, opens your heart and mind to the wisdom and strength of the animal world. You must empty yourself so that spirit can embody you. "Become like a hollow bone,” a Lakota elder once advised me in the sweat lodge. 

1. Dorothy H. Eber, “Recording the Spirit World,” Natural History Magazine, Sept, 2002, p. 54.

[volkswagonblues]

!!! So I was browsing my local bookstore today to buy my mum a birthday present, when I happened on this book Inuit Prints – Japanese Inspiration. It’s about how one Canadian artist travelled to Japan in 1958 to study woodprinting, and and then he brought back what he learned+specialised materials and papers from Japan to the Inuit artists in Cape Dorset. 

From the intro:

“Over the spring and summer of 1959 the Cape Dorset studio blossomed. Buoyed by the artistic and technical possibilities seen in the Japanese prints (not to mention the tantalizing spark of public interest after the first Winnipeg sale), the Inuit printmakers began producing more technically sophisticated, larger and more aesthetically accomplished prints. They were inspired by the powerful and expressive sumizuri (black ink prints on white paper) by Un’ichi Hiratsuka and Shikō Munakata, the flowing colours in Kichiemon Okamura’s kappazuri prints, and the creative use of negative shape (unprinted surface) in Yoshitoshi Mori’s works. 

Yet the Cape Dorset printmakers did not slavishly imitate Japanese artists. Endlessly inventive bricoleurs, they selectively borrowed from their far-flung sources, adapting and modifying the practices, tools, techniques and stylistic elements that best reinforced their own aesthetic and cultural values. Perhaps most importantly, the first five Inuit printmakers—Osuitok Ipeelee, Iyola Kingwatsiak, Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, Kananginak Pootoogook and Lukta Qiatsuk—actively improvised and adapted along the way. Their determination, resourcefulness, willingness to experiment and ability to absorb remarkably cosmopolitan influences are a testament to their creativity, imagination and self-confidence. These qualities have been hallmarks of the Cape Dorset studio for over five decades.” (”Introduction”, Dr. Norman Vorano)

I mean, this is super relevant to my niche interest of writing more Southern Water Tribe fic in ATLA (the coming sequel to my role reversal AU!), but I think it’s cool regardless. See, this is the kind of worldbuilding stuff I like to see in fiction: life has shown over and over again that culture isn’t and never was a pure monolith, people learn from each other all the time! and it’s so cool to see an East Asian influence on Inuit print, because I’ve noticed before that some Haida art (pacific northwest) look like old ink prints in Chinese art. Idk! Shapes and colour and art are cool!

(photo #2 is “Woman Scraping Skin”, 1958, by Joseph Pootoogook, btw.)

--

[ID: three photos, photo 1 shows a book cover with a woodblock print in blue  of a snowy owl and a polar bear cub. Photo 2 shows a woodblock print of an Inuit woman scraping hair off a hide with her ulu, a crescent moon-shaped knife. Photo 3 shows a print of an owl, a fox, and a hare in stylized bubbles. The print is coloured in black, white, and yellow with decorative splotches on the side. End ID]

[miscellaneous-art]

Osuitok Ipeelee, Eskimo Legend: Owl, Fox, Hare, 1958. National Gallery of Canada

[bm-americas]

Four Musk Oxen, Osuitok Ipeelee, 1959, Brooklyn Museum: Arts of the Americas

© Osheetok Ipeeli, courtesy of Dorset Fine Arts Size: 11 15/16 x 21 15/16 in. (30.3 x 55.8 cm) Medium: Stencil (sealskin), paper

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/76833

[pomegranatecom]

Our publisher, Katie Burke, traveled to Cape Dorset in the Canadian Arctic several years ago to visit Kinngait Studios. The community is renowned for its stone carvings, and she saw several artists creating their carvings outdoors. She brought back this serpentinite wolf, which reminded us of Osuitok Ipeelee’s work (his print is on the notecard, but he was a sculptor too!).⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ #tbt #throwbackthursday #capedorset #inuitart #printmaking #pomcom — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/2SIXLmc

[fishstickmonkey]

Owls

Osuitok Ipeelee 

Inuit; Baffin Island, Cape Dorset, Canada

Serpentine

Penn Museum

[artistsanimals]

Title: Eskimo Legend: Owl, Fox, Hare Artist: Osuitok Ipeelee, Canadian Inuit Date: 1958 Medium: Color stencil on wove japan paper Size: 57.4 x 45.2 cm; image: 37.8 x 33.2 cm Source: National Gallery of Canada

[terresauvage]

Osuitok Ipeelee

Muskox, 1958

[waddingtons]

OSUITOK IPEELEE (1923-2005), E7-1154, Cape Dorset

HAWK ON ONE LEG, stone, 19" x 15" — 48.3 x 38.1 cm.

Est. $40,000/50,000

Inuit Art Live Auction, Monday June 2nd, 7pm