Yellowknife (May 26/03) - Artist Germaine Arnaktauyok's stunning images of Inuit hunters and Arctic wildlife brought to life with ancient stories have made her prints some of the most popular Northern images you see hanging up in homes in Yellowknife.

News/North: Tell me what you've got on the go right now.

Germaine Arnaktauyok: I'm invited to the

Inuvik festival (Great Northern Arts Festival), so I'll go. I think it's been 20 years since I was there when it first opened.

N/N: Are you doing works especially for the occasion?

GA: I think I'll do some ink works, some drawings.

N/N: What kinds of things have been inspiring you lately? Do you have some new ideas?

GA: No. Nothing.

N/N: You've been looking at books for inspiration.

GA: My brain is just empty lately. It happens, where you can't think up anything.

N/N: People know you for your works, some would call them playful images sometimes. How would you describe them?

GA: I don't know. I think when you do art work you have to be completely comfortable with what you are doing. The stuff that I do, I'm very comfortable.

N/N: I go around town and I see your work hanging on people's walls. Why do you think people in Yellowknife like your work so much?

GA: I don't know. It could be my style. My style is all its own. If you look at carvings maybe you can relate it to it a bit -- the lines. Carvings have very nice curvy things.

N/N: The inspiration for you, where does it come from?

GA: From books. Because I don't sit down and look at something and draw. Or it comes from somebody saying something, or telling a story. You know, there will be a little paragraph that'll be perfect, you'll see it right away. That's how I work.

For this one [Kakuarshuk -- an image with an Inuit hunter and a polar bear intertwined] I read about how human beings and animals used to exchange -- you could become a human or you could become an animal. And I was trying to figure out 'How do I put an animal and a human being together?'

N/N: Do you start by sketching first? Do you use a pencil?

GA: Yes. Just on any old paper. There is a blueprint in your mind.

N/N: Tell me about where you grew up.

GA: I was born in Igulik area, about 30 miles from it. I lived in a camp. My father was one of the last ones to move to Igulik. I left when I was about nine to go to school in Chesterfield [Inlet] and I never really went back to Igulik to live.

N/N: Tell me about your parents. How did they live? What was your life like then?

GA: I was raised how Inuit used to live, because we lived in a camp. My father just hunted, and we lived up there, just us and our parents and kids. We lived in an igloo, we lived in a sod house. We had dog teams. That was the only thing my father had in the wintertime.

N/N: What kind of food did you eat?

GA: Meat. Seal. Caribou.

N/N: There is so much talk of Inuit art today. Do you remember people making things in Igulik when you were young? What kinds of things did people make?

GA: Everyday life. Everyday living was what people who carved did. I tried carving once, and it's not something for me. I don't know how to look at things...I know how to look at things on paper. I can visualize what I'm going to do. Not in carving. It doesn't make any sense to me. And it's so hard!

N/N: Is art still exciting to you after all these years?

GA:Yes, because something always comes up.

Nothing is ever perfectly done. That's why I don't have any of my work in my home. I have everybody else's.

I am very, very critical of my work. I always see something wrong with it. But the thing is, you do one, then number two you do in a different way. You end up going back to the number one because that was the best one.

N/N: Did you struggle in the beginning with the idea of actually being an artist, or calling yourself an artist?

GA: I don't think so. With me it came naturally, that's why it seemed easy to get into. But once you start living off the money you make from your art work, it becomes difficult. It's very hard to be an artist. But it seems you have to do it.

I have never done anything else except art. So it's natural. But sometimes you question 'What am I doing this art work for?'

N/N: It's interesting you ask yourself that question.

GA: I do alot of asking to myself. When you're doing art work you're mostly by yourself so you think to yourself. I don't like to see people in my face when I'm trying to do something. It's like an invasion to my space. Because that's very much me when I'm doing art work.