A Tribute to Aoudla Pudlat

Inuit Artist Aoudla Pudlat and the Arctic Reflections Quilt

Following the design of my Canadian Provincial Wildflower quilt for Canadian Living Magazine, I was approached by the magazine’s craft editor in 1987 to design and create a quilt reflecting the Canadian Arctic.  At the time, I was a (part-time mature) student at the Ontario College of Art and I had been studying Inuit Art.  One artist whose work I greatly admired was Aoudla Pudlat, whose graceful and whimsical birds I felt would make an excellent centre design for the quilt.  When contacted he gave permission for the use his bird image on the quilt and it was featured in Canadian Living Magazine that same year.  Then, some years later I was contacted by a quiltmaker from the Edmonton area whose aunt had purchased the pattern design but died before completing the quilt itself.  Her niece now wanted to finish the quilt for her cousin and asked if I would help her in choosing the remaining fabrics for the quilt.  Her email was instrumental in my redesigning the borders of the quilt and thus I began my search for Aoudla Pudlat to obtain his permission to reuse his bird image on my quilt design again.

Annie May Johnston

When I begin to consider designing a quilt of another world culture, I immerse myself in as much historical information as I can about that culture, their history, their art, their spiritual beliefs.  And as it happened, the Canadian Arctic itself was part of my early childhood years growing up in Toronto as my father travelled to the Arctic and the NWTerritories every year on business from the mid-nineteen thirties onward until his retirement in 1965.  Thus, I still have pictures of the NorthWest Territory and the Eskimos who lived there.  Great Bear Lake, Great Slave Lake, the Mackenzie River were all part of my vocabulary as a very young child even though I have never travelled there myself.

Annie May Johnston
Historically, the first humans to live along the Alaskan shoreline in Canada were thought to have crossed over the land mass known as the Bering Land Bridge which was formed over the Bering Strait between Russia and Canada.  They appear to be more closely related genetically to Asiatic Mongoloids than our Indigenous peoples.  Over time, they gradually migrated eastward across the Arctic as far as Greenland in the East.  Although the name “Eskimo” was most commonly used in Alaska to refer to the Thule Inuit and Yupik people this usage is now considered unacceptable by many of their descendants.  The term Inuit is now used and the term Eskimo is fading out. And then, in 1999, the map of Canada was redrawn and the NorthWest Territories was divided into two Territories to allow for the eastern Arctic to become known as the Territory of Nunavut, meaning ‘our land’.

Aoudla Pudlat was born in Cape Dorset in 1951 and by the early 1970’s he began to draw highly stylized bird images as well as beginning his apprenticeship in lithography in Cape Dorset.  As his mastery of the printing process progressed he proofed and also editioned many of his own works.  During his lifetime Aoudla Pudlat created a legacy of hundreds of wonderfully whimsical bird images  which are loved and treasured by Inuit art collectors around the world.  His work can be found on the internet:

https://inuitartists.com/collection/aoudla-pudlat/

After searching for a means of contact with Aoudla Pudlat in regard to using his image again on the redesign of this quilt I finally came upon an article one day that left me greatly saddened, even though I did not know the artist personally.

https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/two_drown_while_water-skipping_snowmobiles/

Water-skipping is a sport where snowmobile racers hydroplane their sleds and snowmobiles across lakes and rivers.  If the rider doesn’t keep the throttle at full speed across the open water, the snowmobile or sled will sink.

I felt connected to Aoudla Pudlat using his artwork even though I had never met him personally.  His bird images resonated with me so much and as a tribute to him I created this quilt in his memory.   I depicted his snowmobile falling into cold waters of the lake where the sea goddess, Sedna, was waiting for him.  Taking him into her arms, she protected him as he fell beneath the icy cold Arctic waters.  The Legend of Sedna the Sea Goddess may be found on the internet.  I have had the privilege of speaking personally with Aoudla Pudlat’s widow, Mercy, who spoke English.  A time was arranged for our call and I was so humbled by speaking with an Inuit person in the Arctic that I had goosebumps throughout our call.  In honour of using Aoudla’s work I sent her a one hundred and fifty dollar royalty fee for reusing his bird design again in my revision of the quilt design,  Arctic Reflections.    Quilts truly have a very special way of connecting people

photography by Pete Paterson, Caledon, Ont.