In Arctic traditional life, women had to be experts at stitching because survival depended on warm, adaptable clothing. Beautifully stitched skin clothing was a source of pride and often decorative patterns were made by insets of lighter and darker parts of seal or caribou skin. Patterns and techniques were passed down from generation to generation.

The art of contemporary sewn textiles was developed in Qamani’tuaq in the late 1960’s when souther nmaterials including duffel, embroidery floss and felt allowed for the creation of colourful wall-hangings. It was a variant of graphic art as the duffel became the ‘paper’ on which they created their images with the application of felt cut-outs enlivened by fine embroidery. These however allowed for more creativity as the artists could choose the scale and proportions of the duffel. In in some cases, such as these two by Veronica Manilik (lots 107 & 109), they made this duffel matrix itself into an image.