Jessie Oonark began selling drawings and sewn items soon after her evacuation to Baker Lake in 1958. We know that she sold her first decorated parka in 1959; the former Baker Lake crafts officer Gabe Gély recalled purchasing small hangings from her as early as 1963, and George Swinton purchased two from the craft shop in 1965. Oonark was selling appliqué hangings fairly regularly by the mid 1960s, but not many of her early hangings are housed in museum collections and so they are seldom exhibited or published.

Oonark’s hangings from the mid 1960s have certain things in common: they are all relatively small; they have decorative borders created with appliqué designs and/or decorative stitching; and they are narrative, depicting a variety of activities in one image. However they are quite different one from the other in terms of style and execution of the figures themselves. Obviously Oonark enjoyed experimenting with composition, subject matter, appliqué, embroidery, and stitching.

This delightful hanging is arguably the most beautiful and interesting example we have seen from Oonark’s earliest period of wall hanging production. The hanging is beautifully sewn and composed, with narrative elements that are not only varied but also absolutely charming and surprising. Oonark’s seven kayakers are perhaps unique in her oeuvre; they seem to have been transformed into kayak-people! We know that Oonark knew how to compose the more “typical” first-generation Baker Lake artists’ depictions of kayakers in mixed perspective from a c. 1959-60 drawing [1] – in fact she probably invented it! – thus these playful figures stand out as some of her most enchanting creations. Equally captivating and amusing, and truly surprising, is Oonark’s invention of the tent flap that opens up to reveal two figures inside; we love the “clue” that Oonark leaves for us in the form of two little arms! Marvelous!

1. See Jean Blodgett and Marie Bouchard, Jessie Oonark: A Retrospective (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1986) cat. 4, p. 95.

References: For a similarly sized hanging by Oonark dated to 1965, depicting figures, hunting, and a tent at the upper left, see Jean Blodgett and Marie Bouchard, Jessie Oonark: A Retrospective (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1986) cat. 15. Other contemporaneous hangings are reproduced in that catalogue as well: cats. 10,12,13,14. See also Walker’s Auctions, Ottawa, May 2017, Lot 13 (Oonark or Tuu’luq); Marion Scott Gallery, Vision and Form: The Norman Zepp – Judith Varga Collection of Inuit Art (Vancouver: Marion Scott Gallery, 2003) cat. 43.