Lawson Alec Tuckatuck
Member Since March 2013
Artist Statement The core of my artwork is a means of cultural affirmation and expression. I sculpt using traditional as well as non- traditional Inuit media. My expression is what, I believe, people outside our culture, but more importantly, our own people need to learn, keep, and remember of our cultural past and present. I sculpt, ultimately, to pass on my own knowledge of our people, but to also learn more of our traditions so that we maintain and preserve this knowledge.
Many of my inspirations come from my experiences as a hunter and also what I have seen, encountered, and learned from the land. My passion comes from the traditional legends, myths, stories, and living of our people. Our traditions and language, although still quite strong, are not only changing but also being lost and forgotten. We have survived for thousands of years through the cold and challenging conditions. We now have a new challenge that we must accept in order for our language and culture to survive for thousands of more years. Every single one of us are important in how we survive, protect, and preserve our culture. I have accepted this challenge and it is through sculpting that I passionately do so.
Most often I will take a moment out of a story or legend or personal experience and sculpt it. These moments that I capture are often subjective to my sentiments on that particular scene or story. They can also be significant or symbolic and crucial to the overall definition. In any instance, they have to reach or affect me in a way that I absolutely have to create its meaning. It is from those exact moments that I will envision its final outcome and see what materials it wants to be created out of.
The material that I work with, whether if it is soapstone, caribou antler, or what have you, will often tell me what they want to be. Sometimes I have no choice but to sculpt the beauty that is already revealing itself in its own medium. When these materials expose themselves, it is next to impossible to fail to create its chosen destiny.
If I can acquire material, mainly soapstone, from my homeland, I will, but it is very difficult to do so. Quarrying is quite difficult and the local artists will often only be able to carry enough stone for a few sculptures for themselves. It is also very expensive to ship stone from the north. So, it is much easier, never the less still a challenge, for me to get walrus tusks, caribou antler, musk ox horns, whale bone, wolf skulls, essentially lighter materials, from the north and order stone from distributors and suppliers in the south.
Traditionally we would sculpt by using raw material on raw material or by making tools out of raw material. When rasps, files, rifflers, chisels etc were introduced many years ago, they were the modern tools of the day. The modern tools of today, I and most of the new generations of artists use powered rotary tools such as dremels, foredoms, and angle grinders. I have invested a lot of money into modern equipment such as band saws, belt sanders, drill presses, concrete saws and more. These enable me to create in a way that the tools of the past couldn’t allow. Therefore, I am able to capture my intentions much more effectively.
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