Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 19/99) - John Houston, the son of James and Alma Houston -- two names intertwined with Inuit art over the last 50 years -- has directed a film titled Songs in Stone: An Arctic Journey Home.

The film returns this first-time director to the land of his infancy and early childhood -- Cape Dorset. The family later moved to England. Houston was almost eight and it was a shock on at least one important level.

"I suspected that everybody made art because growing up in Cape Dorset everybody made art or if they didn't it's because they weren't feeling like it," says Houston.

"My feeling was that everybody could. It wasn't a thing for one to be inhibited about. You just put your hand to it and you could do it. That was a very enabling thing and I wish that on everybody. I find in our society we tend to think of the artiste, one of the chosen few who could ever make art."

For Houston, this was never an issue and he notes that this philosophy is responsible for his daring to make Songs in Stone.

Houston's father, James, an early promulgator of Inuit art, is generally credited with introducing the art of the Inuit to their southern neighbours.

The elder Houston also introduced printmaking to the community of Cape Dorset and established the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative.

Alma, John's mother, is considered to have been the powerhouse behind Canadian Arctic Producers, an agency arranging exhibits and promoting Inuit art.

Houston first became involved in film when Paramount made the film of his father's book The White Dawn, where he worked as a coffee boy. Since 1973, he has worked in production.

"There was a lot of mentorship on this project. The producer was Peter d'Entremont and he helped to put together a team. What I was worried about was that in running around trying to do all these things, well that something might drop between the cracks. I really had some very good support on every level."

The film, co-written by Houston and Geoff LeBoutillier, is seen through Houston's eyes. He narrates as well as directs.

"The occasion is that my mother has passed away and her last wish was to have her ashes spread in the hills behind Cape Dorset, up on Baffin Island, which is where we lived for so long and where her heart kind of was."

That final act for his mother became only one of what would turn out to be many levels in the film.

"Certainly a lot of the people in Cape Dorset, the artists and so on, would be thinking about her and they would be thinking about the development of the early days of Inuit art. It would be something that would be very much on everybody's minds."

The film also explores the contrast between the artists who were instrumental in the first wave of Inuit art and their younger counterparts of today.

"There were various different informants who from various different angles we build up an impression of what the original excitement in this was. We track my mother and father's story a little bit, my brother and myself growing up -- so there is all a sort of a family aspect to it."

But Houston hopes that people will get the sense of the extended family that was formed.

"When you see my brother and me back in Cape Dorset -- it's a family homecoming. That's a very beautiful thing. It's a tribute in a way to those wonderful people."

According to Houston, there's a misconception regarding his father that he wants to set straight.

"People always say James Houston -- who discovered Inuit art. Well, that's not really true. Inuit people have been making art for a couple thousand years, but really my father kind of came along and said 'gee, the world should know about this.'"

Artists Kenojuak Ashevak, Osuitok Ipeelie, Iyola Kingswatsiaq, Kananginak Pootoogook, Lukta Qiatsuq and Mannumie Shaqu -- who were all pivotal in the development of Inuit art -- have the opportunity to speak about their experiences.

"These people, in their own right -- they were not sitting around waiting for someone to tell them 'here do this' -- they are creators and originators."

Houston adds that above all and quite by surprise, his film turned out to be about the endurance of family.

Songs in Stone will be broadcast in the south on CTV Aug. 15. Viewers in the North will have the opportunity to see the film on the brand- new Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

Watch for a preview of Songs in Stone in an upcoming edition of News/North.