As noted in the previous Lot 12, the implements and personal accessories of Inuit women became what Bernadette Driscoll described as a “fundamental part of Oonark's graphic vocabulary” [1]. In Big Woman, these forms gather around the figure as emblems of female identity. In the present drawing, Oonark turns instead to making, measuring, and providing, with a seamstress, her patterns, and her finished work becoming emblems of female knowledge and provision.

The focus remains firmly on women and the material culture of femininity but here Oonark celebrates women as makers. A seamstress sits among the fruits and instruments of her work. The finished kamiks and the partial pattern blocks used to produce them are not tucked beside the figure as incidental details. Oonark, instead, enlarges and isolates them, giving each almost the same visual weight as the woman herself. The effect is wonderfully direct: women’s skill, labour, and knowledge are made monumental, worthy of notice and celebration.

1. Bernadette Driscoll, “Tattoos, Hairsticks and Ulus: The Graphic Art of Jessie Oonark,” Arts Manitoba, (Fall 1984), p. 16.

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