Birds of Summer - Pitseolak Ashoona
Birds of Summer captures the seasonal prosperity and migratory patterns experienced and understood by Inuit Cape Dorset artist, Pitseolak Ashoona. One of her earlier works created in 1967, Birds of Summer illustrates the symbolic richness of the season and records experiences during a transitional time for Inuit Canada. Pitseolak’s work reflects her and her people’s incredible change: from semi-nomadic hunters to permanent dwellers.
In 1904, Pitseolak was born in the Northwest Territories of Canada on Nottingham Island, known today as Nunavut. She spent much of her early years with her family moving through different camps, navigating the landscape on the south coast of Baffin Island. By the time she was six, Pitseolak had traveled over 600 miles either by umiaq and a dog or by foot. These experiences, specific to the semi-nomadic lifestyle of the Inuit, enabled Pitseolak to develop a strong knowledge of the arctic environment and land around her, which would later inform themes and subjects in her drawings and prints. As demand for hunting shifted from whaling to fur trade, Pitseolak’s family hunted seasonally and trapped foxes to exchange the furs at trading posts.
In 1922, she married Ashoona and gave birth to seventeen children during her seventeen-year marriage. After Ashoona died in the early 1940s, Pitseolak and her children journeyed to Cape Dorset. The following years were particularly rough and harsh on the family. In the 1960s, after moving into permanent housing, Pitseolak’s cousin introduced her to the nearby West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative print studio. The studio, created as an arts and crafts program of Northern Affairs and National Resources, served as an economic resource for Inuit peoples transitioning from nomadic hunting and trapping to settled communities. Under the program’s facilitator artist James Houston, Pitseolak began drawing to support her family. During the process, the subject of her drawings enabled her to reflect and share memories of her previous camp life. Over the proceeding twenty years, Pitseolak created approximately 9,000 illustrations, of which 250 were made into prints.
The word "pitseolak" is Inuktitut for sea pigeon. Pitseolak explained, “When I see pitseolaks over the sea, I say, ‘There go those lovely birds -that’s me flying.’ ” Pitseolak’s personification and reflection on birds flying is embodied through the subjects in the print Birds of Summer.
In the center of the composition, the viewer sees four animal forms depicted in various sizes and different physical and individual markings. The creatures’ bodies suggest a forward and migratory movement —all flocking in the same direction on their quest. The stylized upward extension of the birds’ wings signify to the viewer a sense of motion. Their feet—held back from their bodies—suggest the streamline form birds take in-flight to ensure their speed forward. With their beaks slightly ajar, three of the birds carry sprouted seeds. Perhaps these seeds represent offerings and abundances associated with the ease and the warmth of the summer season? All birds appear as individuals; each one expresses a different pattern of contour lines, diagonals, and shapes spread across their plumage, wings, and beaks. In the lower portion of the composition, a creature appears to transform from a bird into a seafaring mammal. Stylistically the creature’s back lowers to make space for the bird’s passage above. One’s gaze drifts from the creature’s beak to a fin-like form in the right corner then to a projecting foot near the animal’s rear. Perhaps this morphing creature represents the shifts amongst life sources and seasons moving from one being to another?
After creating Birds of Summer, Pitseolak experienced great success in the 1970s, including a retrospective exhibition that traveled to the Smithsonian and five other US museums. In 1974, Piitseolak was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and in 1977, she received the Order of Canada for her contribution to Canadian visual arts and heritage. Many details and personal accounts of Pitseolak’s life are recorded through the work of historian and writer Dorothy Harley Eber. Pitseolak died on May 28, 1983. The SMCMoA is fortunate to care for Pitseolak’s artwork and also artwork by one of her daughters, Napatchie Pootoogook.
sources:
Lalonde, Christine. Pitseolak Ashoona: Life & Work. Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2015. ISBN 978-1-4871-0056-8
"PITSEOLAK (Pitseolak Ashoona)”. Canadian Women Artists History Initiative. August 6, 2012. Accessed July 20, 2020.
"Pitseolak Ashoona 1904–1983". National Gallery of Canada. Accessed July 20, 2020.
further readings:
Harley Eber, Dorothy. Pitseolak Ashoona. The Candian Encylopedia, February 7, 2006. Accessed July 31, 2020.