A self-taught and prolific artist, Pitseolak Ashoona produced thousands of drawings, and her prints were mainstays of the Cape Dorset print collections almost from the beginning. Many will recognize Pitseolak’s birds as studies in colour, texture, and curved limbs. In some ways Festive Bird is part of that canon of works - on steroids! This bird practically disappears in an explosion of plumage, whose different colours radiate in gentle swirls. There are no actual “wings”; they have dematerialized into the feather shapes. One needs a second look to find the fine lines outlining an arched body and legs flying back in the wind. This now famous print by Pitseolak was chosen to grace the cover of the 1971 Cape Dorset print catalogue.

References: This now famous print by Pitseolak was chosen to be the cover of the 1971 Cape Dorset print catalogue. It is also reproduced in Ernst Roch, ed., Arts of the Eskimo: Prints, (Signum/Oxford 1974) p. 119. For an introduction to Pitseolak’s life and art see Dorothy Eber ed., Pitseolak: Pictures out of my life, (Montreal/Toronto: Design Collaborative Books/Oxford University Press, 1971) unpaginated. For this work, see Christine Lalonde, Pitseolak Ashoona: Her Life & Work, (Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2015, digital publication) p. 40, and the publication as a whole for an overview of her life and work. See also Odette Leroux, Marion E. Jackson and Minnie Aodla Freeman, ed., Inuit Women Artists: Voices from Cape Dorset, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1994), p. 51.