Musk Ox With Faces
Artifact
1983.010.001
1974
Silas Aittauq was an Inuit artist from Baker Lake, NWT. Inuit artists have a deep connection with Nature and the Land due to a dependence on it for their livelihood and its embodiment of their spiritual beliefs. Aittauq's carvings frequently "are of family groups with clustered heads closely carved from a single block of soapstone and held in close-knit unity by the mass of the stone." In Musk Ox with Faces, the family group is carved upon the abstracted form of the muskox, thus unifying family with the symbolic representation of both food source and spiritual touchstone. Inuit artists seem to also have a strong personal relationship to the nature of their medium, with Aittauq at one time saying "a round stone is easier for thinking," while interestingly not articulating why.
soapstone
Sculpture
Collection of the University of Saskatchewan. Purchase, 1983.