Wooden Owl Sculpture

I had some leftover wood from carving out the seat of an adult-sized wooden chair I’m currently making, and at first I was planning to use it with my wife to make a woodblock print just for fun. Not long before that, I had visited Farmers Kitchen Inuit in Himeji and seen artwork by Canada’s Indigenous Inuit people. The images left a strong impression on me, so I later searched online and came across an owl print. Owls symbolize good fortune, wisdom, and the idea of “no hardship,” so if I was going to carve a print, I felt this motif was perfect. (Apparently, a similar work is preserved at the National Museum of Ethnology in Expo Park.)

With that inspiration, I drew “the owl inside my mind” in pencil on the wood—round, plump cheeks inspired partly by the image of Arata, and a chubby, rounded body. It was the first time since middle school that I had used a carving knife, and to my surprise the blade cut smoothly and felt wonderful to work with. Before I knew it, the project had shifted from printmaking to sculpture. For color, I stained the surface using coffee.

Reference keywords: Inuit, carving knife

About Kenojuak Ashevak

My interest traces back to the Inuit art I saw at Farmers Kitchen Inuit in Himeji. Since then, I’ve found a few favorite works online. When I come across a worn cutting board or a nice piece of old wood, I quietly trace and carve the images for display. I only manage one piece every few years, but for some reason Kenojuak Ashevak’s works always resonate deeply with me. Each one stirs something inside, in a way I can’t fully explain.

There aren’t many Japanese resources about her, but according to translated English Wikipedia articles, Kenojuak Ashevak was born in an igloo at an Inuit camp in Ikirasak on the south coast of Baffin Island, where she lived under extremely harsh conditions. She was named after her maternal grandfather, and in their culture inheriting a name was considered good fortune. When she was six years old, her father was murdered during a dispute with Christian converts at a hunting camp, forcing the family to relocate and survive through traditional crafts and handiwork. A tragic story, indeed.

At nineteen, she entered an arranged marriage—not something she initially welcomed—but her husband, the Inuit hunter Johnniebo Ashevak, turned out to be gentle and kind, and over time they developed a deep bond. Later, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent three years in isolation, during which several of her children passed away. Many of her children and grandchildren would also die young from illness. It is a world of hardship I can scarcely imagine.

Even so, Kenojuak Ashevak went on to become one of the first Inuit women in Cape Dorset to begin drawing. She worked with pen and paint, carved soapstone—an extremely soft stone—and produced thousands of drawings, etchings, prints, and sculptures. Perhaps her artistic expression itself was a kind of spiritual release.

Encountering her enormous body of work made me want to carve as well. It feels presumptuous to imitate, but the more I carve, the farther her work seems to drift from my reach, as if revealing just how deep her art truly is. She once said:

“I am just concentrating on placing it down on paper in a way that is pleasing to my own eye, whether it has anything to do with subjective reality or not.”

There is a clear sense of integrity in that statement—creating in a way that remains true to oneself. That unshakable style was her foundation, and perhaps her belief in life itself.