Gravenhurst, Ont. (Dec 06/04) - Inuit inmates in a carving program at a federal prison are featured in a new book about an art auction.

Arctic Transformations: Carvers at Fenbrook profiles nine offenders who provided carvings for a 2003 auction.

Fenbrook Medium Security prison in Gravenhurst, Ont., houses federal offenders from Nunavut. The prison has a carving skills program for its Inuit inmates.

The carving classes are part of a rehabilitation program, giving offenders skills to support themselves upon their return to Nunavut, said Evan Heise, co-ordinator of the Volunteer Program and Community Outreach for Correctional Service Canada's Central District.

"Two years ago we were looking at sponsoring an art auction for charity using offender art," he said.

The inmates agreed to donate items to auction for charity and Arctic Co-op agreed to supply the stone for the items. Waddington's, a major Canadian auction house that sells a lot of Inuit art, conducted the auction in March 2003.

Heise was working on arrangements for the charity auction one day when a publisher from Seraphim Books stopped by his office with another book she was working on. She thought the story of the auction would make a good book.

There were two book launches for Arctic transformations. The main one was at Feheley Fine Arts in Toronto in October, but there was also a smaller launch at the prison in June.

Along with photos of the carvings that were auctioned off, the book has one-page biographies of each of the nine artists involved in English and Inuktitut. There is also a foreword by the prison's warden about the carving program and an essay on the future of Inuit art by Pat Feheley, owner of the gallery.

The auction raised more than $14,000 for the Illitiit Society of Nunavut. Part of the book's proceeds go to a carvers' trust fund, which pays for tools and supplies for the inmates, and the rest is going to charities in Nunavut.

In order to participate in the carving program, Inuit inmates have to follow their Correctional Plan and maintain good behaviour.

Aside from donations made to the charity auction, money from sales of inmate art is placed in a savings account which the carver can access upon his release.

Only two of the nine inmate carvers profiled in the book remain at Fenbrook. Another auction of prison-made Inuit carvings is planned for next March.