Meet Our Board

Janet Beylin, President

I am the newest addition to the IAS Board, and the newest also to Inuit art.

I work in the Anthropology Collections department of the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. One day I was looking for an object to research and write up for the museum's website, and I came across an exquisite model of an Inuit hunter in his kayak. I was utterly intrigued, particularly by the detail and beauty of the kayak itself. Researching this piece introduced me not only to Historical Period traders, but also to the greater and more complex picture of Inuit art and culture.

Soon after, I stumbled across the Dennos Museum, and the realization that I could actually own Inuit art pieces. Shortly thereafter, I attended my first IAS meeting (Traverse City), with more dealers, lectures, and similarly interested people. As with many things, the more exposure I had, the more interested I became, and the more I learned, the deeper was my appreciation.

I am grateful for the opportunities provided by the Annual Meetings, and I hope through my Board membership to reach others as the IAS has reached and inspired me.

Read the letter from the Board President:
- » Janet’s Welcome Letter
- » IAS Website and IAS Membership
Ann Conway, Vice President

My introduction to Inuit culture began in 1976 and was a total accident. I had taken my children to Toronto for the weekend and the science museum was on the agenda. They had a live demonstration of an Inuit camp with men and women working on projects and throat singing. We left with two small soapstone carvings and the seed of an interest that world come to be an important part of my life.

I found other soapstone pieces as I sailed (my other passion) the North Channel of Georgian Bay and other Canadian waters. This was followed by my discovery of the Dennos Museum in Traverse City. Now I had a regular source of Inuit sculpture. As fate would have it, my brother settled in Traverse City and the water there is dependably deep for my boat. What good reasons beyond a good source of Inuit art to retire to that community. So that is where I can be found.
The next big event was reading about a meeting in Dearborn, MI of people interested in Inuit art. I was able to attend and the rest is history. I am a member of the Inuit Art Society and happy to have found like-minded souls who are touched by this art form.
Susan E. Beck, Secretary

I have been collecting Inuit art since my mid-20’s. I found myself in Canada a lot during my early marketing career, and fell in love with how the Inuit express themselves in their native materials. Initially, I was devoted just to their sculpture, particularly sednas and transformation pieces, but have grown to love and collect prints.

I was always so disappointed when people came to my home and never once commented on my collection. Despite my occasional trips to the local elementary school when my children were young to share pieces of my collection and my passion for the Inuit culture, I essentially collected in isolation. Then when I heard a group of like-minded fellow Inuit art collectors was coming together in the Midwest (which ultimately became the Inuit Art Society), I was ecstatic. I actually had someone to share my “collecting” stories with, even if it was only once a year at our annual meeting. I subsequently joined the board and like my fellow board members, am committed to sharing our enthusiasm for this wonderful art form. I hope someday to actually visit the carving communities in Nunavut.
Claude M. Weil, Co-Treasurer

My first introduction to Inuit (then Eskimo) art occurred in 1971 when I was Director of the Center for Continuing Education at the University of Chicago. A gentleman named Earl Wadjyk, who owned an Eskimo Art Gallery in Madison, Wisconsin called The Great White Bear, approached me and asked whether he might rent some of our space to exhibit and sell some of his wares. Not knowing anything about Eskimo art, I found the idea intriguing and approved his request.

A few months later he came for his first show and I was smitten, though I made only a couple small and rather tentative purchases: a head by Ovilu from Eskimo Point and a mother and child by Tuksweetok, also from Eskimo Point. Earl returned to our Center twice annually until 1981 and I started making more substantial purchases, both sculptures and prints.Additionally, my brother had moved to Saskatoon, Canada and my visits there exposed me to further temptation. I also found that the Department of Interior in Washington had a very nice shop where Inuit art could be bought - primarily from Alaska.

With the founding of the Inuit Art Society, I became a more regular purchaser and have built a substantial collection of sculptures, prints and other Inuit artifacts. I’ve visited the IAF festival in Ottawa and recently visited Iqaluit.

What is it that draws me to Inuit Art. It is part of my interest in folk art acquired while traveling in many parts of the world. I find that Inuit pieces particularly speak to me very directly. They create an intimacy which few other art forms do. I hope that the endearing quality of naiveté will not be lost as Inuk artists are exposed to more sophisticated forms of art.
Lane Phillips, Co-Treasurer

I have been collecting Inuit art (primarily Cape Dorset prints at first) since 1979, although my initial First Nations interest was in the arts of the NW Coast. My wife and I have a collection of about 150 prints and somewhat fewer than 100 sculptures. I am a fanatic about collecting information about Inuit art, so we have about three bookcases filled with books, catalogues, gallery ephemera, and magazines (yes, I have every issue of IAQ and Sandra Barz’s Arts & Culture of the North, years of Waddingtons’ catalogues, every Cape Dorset annual catalogue, and other reference works, so feel free to contact me with questions). I previously served a three-year term on the board, served as IAS President in 2010, and was re-drafted by board appointment in June 2011 to fill a vacancy. I have assumed responsibility for membership issues and have been elected to serve as co-treasurer for the IAS for 2012.
Si Gilman, Board Member-at-Large

My wife, Kiki and I have been collecting Inuit art for more than twenty years. We bought our first carving in 1973 while visiting Jasper in the Canadian Rockies. It lived in solitary splendor until 1983. On a visit to the Stratford Festival in Ontario, we walked into a small cottage there where a woman had set up a gallery showing Inuit and other indigenous art. We started talking with her, and were electrified by her enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge of Inuit art. Not surprisingly, we walked out with a piece.

Today we have about 50 large pieces and more than a hundred smaller ones, taking up just about all the flat space in our apartment. They are set off by a number of prints we've had to have over the years; they take up just about all the wall space. The carvers include Nuna Parr, Kananginak, Barnabas, Saila Kipanek, Ralph Porter, Toonoo Sharkey, and Pitseolak, among others. Their print collection includes works by Kenojuak, Kananginak, and Germaine Arnaktauyok. Each piece has been selected because “it speaks to us”.

Says Si, “From time to time, we tell each other that we have to stop buying. But we can't; there appears to be no cure for this affliction.”
Chuck Hudson, Board Member-at-Large

It began in 1976 with a print from Bernie Rink’s collection which is now at the Dennos Museum of Northwestern Michigan College. The print was Basking Seals by Anna. I stood gawking at drawers of prints Bernie had amassed in an art field few recognized as culturally astute or relevant. You never think of a collection when you begin with only one.

A few carvings came next. I was intrigued with transformations and their stories. The Inuit were pulling me and I wanted to know who these people were. Twenty years after that first print, my family and I joined Judy Burch of Arctic Inuit Art in 1996 on an adventure to the artists and ice at Pangnirtung, Pond Inlet and the floe edge where we tented for four days. There were seven of us plus seven guides and their guns. We joked until we saw “Nanook’s” paw print.

At Pang and Pond Inlet, I met the Inuit artists of some of my collected pieces and began to feel how the carver’s spirit infused the piece of art each created. (I am a retired graphics designer whose senses will never retire.) I couldn’t understand Inuktitut, but the town’s environment showed me the harshness in which these artists lived and thrived and why “spirits” were needed to give these people faith to protect their families. Now I not only appreciate my Inuit art for its form, line and color, but for its spirit as well.

Though my collection encompasses many animal, myth and transformation images, my favorite has become Sedna, mother of all sea creatures.

Learning that part of the Inuit Art Society’s reason for being created was education about the culture of the Inuit makes those who join us more than collectors of art. We will learn, and with time, have an understanding of their 4000 year old culture.
Carol P. Klein, Board Member-at-Large

I have always been a collector of many types of art, in part as a result of my college art education. Upon making my first purchase of Inuit art in Canada, sometime in the 60’s, the beginning of my collection and my love of the art — primarily sculpture, but graphics as well — was formed. Today, that first piece is still one of my favorites. My pieces have been found in Canada, California, our IAS meetings and primarily Michigan, from the Dennos Museum to estate sales and flea markets, as well as one from an IAS member.
Marie McCosh, Board Member-at-Large

I have been collecting Inuit art since 1972 when a move to Maine gave me a chance to visit an Inuit art gallery in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. We have collected sculpture and prints and make regular trips to Sivertson Gallery’s Inuit art premieres in northern Minnesota. There my daughter and I had the opportunity to take a sculpture call from Ohito Ashoona. Our family’s interest [in Inuit art] is multi-generational – my father passed on some smaller sculptures to the family and several of my children share our interest. I work in the Minneapolis School District in a middle school and have a bachelor’s degree in anthropology with a focus on folklore.
Fred Sparling, Board Member-at-Large

Joyce and I started collecting Inuit art in the 1980s with one small piece, two birds pegged to a base. I learned that when they faced each other, all was well, but when facing different directions, we needed to communicate better. Later we started collecting with a passion, as detailed in our recent memoir "North to Nunavut". Love of the art started a quest to see the land and meet the people. Over a decade we visited Baker Lake, Arviat, and Igloolik multiple times, and many other communities at least once. The trips included two Adventure Canada cruises, four canoe trips on some of the great Barren Grounds rivers of the central Inuit, and visits with families in their hamlet homes and in their tundra camps. We became friends with many Inuit, including some well known artists.

Our collection is noteworthy for its relative emphasis on wall hangings from Baker Lake, sculptures and prints from Baker Lake, Arviat and Cape Dorset, and older pieces. Artists represented multiple times in our collection include Jessie Oonark (drawings, prints, wallhangings), Marion Tuu'luq, Ruth Qaulluaryuk, Josiah Nuilaalik, Andy Miki, John Kavik, Barnabus, Davidialuk, Oviloo Tunnillie, Paul Toolooktook, Lucy Tasseor, Miriam Qiyuk, Pitaloosie Saila, Pitseolak Ashoona, Sheojuk, Elizabeth Nutaraluk and "unknown". Sculptures range from very large to very small, including a marvelous set of small heads, some shamanic. In all we hold about 150 pieces, and living with them adds great daily pleasure and meaning. We collected eclectically, and only if we both loved a piece. I am delighted to be able to share with like-minded people, and as the newest member of the Board, to working with the IAS to promote appreciation of the art, and the culture. As a North Carolinian, I hope to help represent the many fans of Inuit art who live outside of the upper Midwest base of the society.