In this basket, Lydia and Silassie Tuki’s work meets at the lid. Here, Lydia built the body from thick, tightly sewn coils of grass, threading strips of dark hide through the walls to create the bold geometric pattern that circles and zags around the form. Silassie, for his part, supplied the finishing touch: the small stone hare perched on the lid, at once a handle and a sculpture.

This division of labour was traditional in Inukjuak basket-making. Marybelle Myers noted in Things Made by Inuit (1980) that while the grasswork belonged to the woman, the carved lid handle was customarily made by her husband. She also singled out the incorporation of dark sealskin into the basket walls as a mark of the maker’s skill. Here, those two practices come together beautifully: Lydia’s pattern is built into the basket rather than laid over it, while Silassie’s alert little hare gives the whole object its character.

See Marybelle Myers, ed., Things Made by Inuit, (Montreal: Fédération des Coopératives du Nouveau-Québec, 1980)