One of the highlights of my career was to photograph a woman who was born in an igloo.
This image is part of series I carried out for Time Magazine photographing Artists of the North.
Kenojuak had 11 children by her first husband and adopted five more. Seven of her children died in childhood. At the time of her death from lung cancer, she was living in a wood-frame house in Kinngait with dozens of children she had adopted to support her community.
I asked Kenojuak how she became an artist and she told me that she had always thought it was “man`s” work, but became interested when she was hospitalized for tuberculosis and bored. She also mentioned that she wanted to make herself useful since she felt her hunting and fishing skills had waned and her husband teased her about it. In the end…her art funded his new boat and rifle and earned Cape Dorset a place in art history.
In 2017, the $10 bill released in celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday features Kenojuak’s stone-cut and stencil printed work called “Owl’s Bouquet”. We shared that honor…
The work of Kenojuak can be found in the collections of Canada’s National Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ontario which chose this portrait as the signature portrait of her for their 2017 exhibit of her work.