My grandmother used to tell me stories… My grandmother told me that animals used to turn into people. My grandmother told me stories to put me to sleep at night. I wondered how I could do something to put the stories my grandmother used to tell me into art. 

(From a 2004 artist interview with Ingo Hessel, in Hessel, Arctic Spirit, 2006, p. 123)

Greatly inspired by her grandmother's stories, animal-human transformation figures have been the hallmark of Irene Avaalaaqiaq’s stitchwork since the early 1970s. This work on cloth is no exception to Irene’s canon of fantastical creatures: the bird-people singing from the outer sides of the hanging, accompanied by two more singing figures with striped, columnar bodies - a wolf-human and another bird-human - may well be straight from her grandmother’s stories. At the centre, a smiling woman (perhaps a shaman) seems to be conducting the chorus! With its stark contrast of dark and bright colours, and zigzag embroidery patterns that dance across the figures, this work on cloth is notable for its feeling of energy and excitement.

References: For works by Avaalaaqiaq from the same period (with embroidery stripes) see Ingo Hessel, Inuit Art: An Introduction, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / New York: Harry Abrams / London: British Museum Press, 1998), fig. 33; Sheila Butler, “Wall Hangings from Baker Lake” in Alma Houston ed., Inuit Art: An Anthology, (Winnipeg: Watson and Dwyer Publishing, 1988), p. 96. Also see similar contemporaneous works by the artists in Jean Blodgett, Grasp Tight the Old Ways: Selections from the Klamer Family Collection of Inuit Art, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1983), cats. 10, 11, pp. 44-45. See the section on the artist in Marion Scott Gallery, Two Great Image Makers from Baker Lake, (Vancouver: Marion Scott Gallery, 1999). See also an engaging book about Avaalaaqiaq and her art: Judith Nasby, Irene Avaalaaqiaq: Myth and Reality, (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002). For an important work see Ingo Hessel, Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / Phoenix: Heard Museum, 2006), cat. 111.