by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Dec 17/97) - Lucy Sanertanut is building on her reputation as one of Rankin Inlet's premier artists.

She is one of 17 female Inuit artists at a two-week pan-Arctic workshop at the Ottawa School of Art last month. There she was given the rare opportunity to meet other artists from as far away as Goose Bay, Labrador.

"I saw different artwork -- different masks, faces, eyes," said Sanertanut. "I learned a lot. Carving differently was a big part of the learning experience."

Organized by the Inuit Art Foundation, the session brought Inuit women from all over the Arctic, including the NWT, northern Quebec and Labrador, for the first time. The Inuit Art Foundation, in its 13th year, is a national non-profit organization representing 2,000 Inuit artists across Canada.

Marybelle Mitchell, executive director of the Inuit Art Foundation, called it the first workshop of its kind to involve such an artistically and geographically diverse body of Inuit women.

For all artists involved, it worked as an exchange of ideas between printmakers, carvers, jewelry-makers, doll-makers and video artists. For Sanertanut, it was a tremendous success to see the work of artists of all ages and from outside then region.

She picked up different tips about carving and learned different ways of doing things.

Sanertanut, 44, who carves soapstone and makes ivory jewelry, said it was an experience of a lifetime.

For her, the best part of the trip was the time she spent teaching kids how to carve.

"There were lots of kids trying to carve -- that was the best part," she said. "They were trying to copy my carving and I gave them some small carvings. That was very important for me."

The people she met while in Ottawa has given her inspiration to try different things in her work.

"Lots of people wanted to buy the carvings, and I learned about the type of carvings that people want to buy," she said.

Sanertanut, who works full-time at the Taparti Centre, said that she looks forward to getting some time to use some of the new techniques she learned from her peers in Ottawa.

"I'm just really busy right now," she said.