TALOYOAK/SPENCE BAY - Artists should have a warm place to work and better tools, which will in turn increase the quality of their work, say some of the hamlet reps and artists who gathered for the second annual regional arts and crafts workshop late last month in Taloyoak.

Thirty hamlet officials and artists from the Kitikmeot region gathered for a three-day workshop to promote a regional plan for arts and crafts.

Every community should have an arts and crafts studio but that does not necessarily mean a costly investment as they could use old, abandoned buildings, said Joseph Aglukkaq, the economic development officer trainee in Gjoa Haven. He added artists, such as carvers, should work indoors as the winters are long.

"We want to increase production and the quality of the work that is been done here. We need to provide the artists not only proper and better tools but we need to provide them some type of shelter, where they can carve indoors," he said.

"It's pretty hard to carve in the winter when it's minus-40 or something, your fingers are cold, your feet are cold, your hands, everything is cold and you're trying to produce a carving. It's pretty hard to do because you've got to go in and warm up. You might lose interest."

Taloyoak's economic development officer Jimmy Oleekatalik said his community is working on a carving studio and a granite carving workshop, trial-run initiatives that could be implemented in the region and across the territory.

"We're trying to kill two birds with one stone," he said. "If we had a carving studio, then the carvers have a warmer place to go and carve all winter for better quality instead of freezing outside and not do a better job than he would normally do."

According to a report issued by the Government of Nunavut in June 2010, arts and crafts contributes $33.4 million to the territory's economy and the equivalent of 1,068 full-time jobs.

Another point discussed was the idea of establishing arts and crafts committees in the various communities, said Nunavut Development Corporation president Darrin Nichol.

"There seems to be a strong appetite to go back and try to develop arts and crafts committees locally, within their own communities in the Kitikmeot, to advance issues and initiatives as it relates to the arts," he said.

Oleekatalik said arts and crafts committees in the communities is a good idea.

"I think for things to go through, you need to form a committee," he said.

Kugluktuk's economic development officer Stephen Novak said they are looking at making arts and crafts part of the economic development committee.

"I think it's good for the artists to have a voice," he said. "We'll probably work with our community economic development committee to work with the artists, the carvers and sewers and painters and things like that. We'll take their concerns and work with them to come up with a community idea and then we'll with the other communities in the Kitikmeot to come up with a regional idea."