Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Sep 30/02) - Working from home has many challenges and rewards, but one carver has learned to balance business amid distractions of home life.

Don Gruben manufactures hand-carved jewelry featuring designs from his Inuvialuit heritage. He also has four children.

Originally from Tuk, Gruben has won the Artists Choice Award two years in-a-row at the Great Northern Arts Festival.

He started carving and making jewelry in 1990, after watching his brother John at their home in Tuk.

"He was doing jewelry before I was and I was always fascinated by his work," Gruben said.

In 1998, Gruben decided to formally study jewelry making at Aurora College, where he learned to work in other media and soft metals.

Today, he works in all types of traditional media like soapstone, moose antler, ivory, but still does some metal work.

"If I can get my hands on it, I also like to work with baleen," he said. "I also do work with silver and soft metals like dixie gold, brass and copper."

He has a commission contract to do pendants and brooches for Arctic Nature Tours and also sells to Originals on Mackenzie.

While he's had other jobs, he now just works on his jewelry, crafting about five pieces everyday.

"The hardest part for me is to split the material," he said. "I cut everything out by hand."

Once he has the material sized, he draws the design and then carves out the image.

The earrings, pendants and brooches are smaller-scale versions of big carvings, featuring inukshuks, hunters, bears, drummers and belugas.

"I'm pretty much the only one in town who does this type of jewelry -- with the designs of our culture," he said.

He does do some large carvings too, working mainly in Brazilian soapstone, with polar bears being his favourite subject.

While he loves to do the art work, sometimes he misses physical work.

"Last spring, I worked for Inuvik Works," Gruben said.

"I like getting out and doing the physical work out."

"Doing the work I do, it's just one arm that gets the work out and the rest is up here," he said, tapping a finger on his temple. "It's a lot of mental work."