Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Inuvik (July 19/02) - When a carver selects a piece of stone to carve, he peers into the grain and the layers for a centuries-old sedimentary secret that will be told in the form of their next great art work.

But sometimes the stone has a different idea.

A hidden crack or fissure in the stone can sever the leg from a polar bear or break a hunter's back.

Dealing with this catastrophe of carving is something every artist must contend with.

Sometimes the break can be pegged and glued, but Inuvik carver William Gruben says the artist can see the break as a message from the stone that it wants to be something different.

"When things like that happen, it's because the rock is telling you you're going the wrong way," Gruben grinned.

He recalled a delicate piece he was just about to begin polishing, when the unthinkable happened.

Lucky breaks

"I was working on the face, but it was full of dust, so without thinking, I banged it on my knee and this feather broke right off," he recalled. "Norman Lennie was watching and he said, 'What are you gonna do now?' "

"I said, 'I think this rock wants me to open up it's body.' "

He studied the piece and went to work, producing a far better piece than he'd originally planned.

"It turned out really good -- you could see the movement all through it."

When the inspiration becomes perspiration, Gruben just shakes it off.

"You just adjust. There is nothing you can do, so you might as well incorporate that break into a new design," Gruben said. "It's like a little game."

Steven Sateana from Rankin Inlet, said all good artists have the skills to adapt. When things go wrong, he has a simple solution.

"You improvise," Sateana said. "Sometimes you use a piece of bone or shorten it up and change it a little bit and sometimes it works out better."

Before coaxing the shape from the stone, the artist will test the media for faults.

"We usually try to find the cracks and if you hit it, it will break, but if it doesn't you go ahead," Sateana said.

On the rebound

Rebounding from a bad break is something every artist learns early on.

"I learned to carve from a professional," Sateana said. "He told me never to worry, never to bother and you can always change it."

Stan Ruben from Paulatuk looks deep into the stone to develop an alternate design, should something go wrong with the initial image.

"When I carve, I try to look ahead to see if there might be a piece that will break off and I test it with a chisel first to see if there are flaws," he said. "You think ahead and say, 'If this happens, then I will do it this way.' "

"There isn't anything you can't overcome."

Like the stone they work with, Ruben said the trick is to work around and beyond the limitations of the rock while staying within the limits of the artist.

"Each artist has flaws and each rock has flaws, but we try to work around them," he said, working and smiling through a cloud of limestone dust.