Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Ivvavik, Aulavik, and Tuktut Nogait Recap

This is the final post on the Parks Canada project and then I'll stop talking about it. It went on a few weeks longer than I expected and I blame a lot of that on the weather slowing down some of the final drying stages. The photos show the original Inuvialuit artifacts alongside the reproductions. These aren't casts - they are 1:1 reproductions made in the original materials; wood for wood, antler for antler, tin for tin, etc. All of the artifacts have Parks Canada numbers attached to them somewhere. I marked or engraved a "TR" in the same location on all of the reproductions to help distinguish them from the originals. I have one last meeting in at The Rooms this morning. Elaine Anton has been a tremendous help arranging the shipping and storage of the artifacts while I've been working on them. Today she assesses the condition of the artifacts to ensure that there was no deterioration of their condition over the summer and we'll package everything up for FedEx to pick up. Later today the artifacts go back to the conservation lab in Winnipeg and the reproductions head to the Parks Canada Office in Inuvik.

Ivvavik National Park:


Artifacts in the middle, reproductions above and below


Artifacts in the middle, reproductions left and right

Aulavik National Park:


Artifacts (bottom) Reproductions (Top)


Artifacts (bottom) Reproductions (Top)

Tuktut Nogait National Park:


Artifacts (bottom) Reproductions (Top)


Artifacts (bottom) Reproductions (Top)

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Photo Captions:
First: The "TR" Signature. Well, technically I snuck in a Lazy L there for my middle initial, too.
Second-Seventh: Artifact Comparisons.

6 comments:

  1. I can attest to an overwhelming sense of relief and satisfaction at Elfshot headquarters today! I do believe I saw a skip in Tim's step as he loaded the car ;-)

    Amazing job. So proud. Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete
  2. *eyes signature*
    You aren't by any chance a Tolkien fan, are you?

    ReplyDelete
  3. It feels great to have the job done!

    You caught me! I did look at Tolkien's JRRT monogram when I was working on my signature, because I liked how he layered the letters together. I also looked at Runes because I knew I wanted straight lines that would be easy to scratch into rocks. It needed to be legible at a small size and use as few lines as posisble.

    I could have done the TR with 4 lines, but I added the tick at the end of the T to make a little L because I liked it. It reminds me of my Dad's brands. His cattle brand is his initials, EHR, and his horse brand is a Lazy R, which is an "R" lying on its back, over a bar. I like that in branding lingo a letter on its side isn't just rotated 90 degrees - its being lazy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great job in reproduction work. I suspect during the Pleistocene you were on several hunting and 'vision' quests, (Past life?). Very good reproductions using original materials. I would like to see more of your efforts and recommend some very nice ivory and bone work by the 'Okvik' Yupik ancient types, St. Lawrence Island as with "Old Bering Sea' collectors would love high grade repro's surely."

    ReplyDelete