Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

TUKTOYAKTUK - Marion Taylor Pokiak was just 13 years old when she completed her first carving - a beluga whale, out of caribou antler, under her mother's watchful eye.

Marion Taylor Pokiak, 23, stands with two of her carvings. Since she became a mother in March, Taylor Pokiak now waits until her daughter is napping to take out her tools. "Hopefully she sleeps when I'm carving," she said. - Nathalie Heiberg-Harrison/NNSL photo

"It was neat. I liked it. It was something else," she said. "When I finished I felt like I accomplished something."

You could say that it had been written - or carved - in stone that Taylor Pokiak would one day become a carver. She comes from a long line of artists, starting with her grandfather, Bobby Pokiak, but continuing on with her mother, Mary Ann Taylor Reid, and her uncles and aunts.

"I don't know if I'd be carving if my family wasn't carvers. I was always around it," she said.

Taylor Pokiak grew up living with her grandparents in Tuktoyaktuk and started carving once she wasn't "too scared to pick up a dremel."

She estimates that since then she has carved hundreds of figures, primarily from caribou antler and muskox horn.

Her favourite subject: "seals, 'cause they're so cute."

Each piece usually takes a couple days to complete, but she said she never rushes to finish and often puts one carving aside to start another. Before she begins she always sees the finished product within the rock or bone, but then sometimes goes blank before she chips away to find it.

"If you keep carving it wouldn't turn out as nice as you'd seen it, so I pick up another thing and work on that," she said.

She chalks up the end result to a lot of patience and a lot of hard work.

This week, she will be attending the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik, something she's been doing since she was a teenager. She goes to meet new artists, see their work and reunite with old friends.

"It's like a family reunion. It's nice to get to gather with other artists and carve with them," she said.

"As I see other people's artwork and as I keep carving my carvings, they look nicer. The thing I like about it, carving with different artists for new ideas and everything, it's always a challenge to do something new."

She will also be teaching a beluga whale carving course so that others, who might have been too afraid to pick up a dremel before, can have a hand in creating their own piece of art.

Last year she taught a class on how to carve seals, which didn't go exactly as planned. One student didn't finish, she said, and another ended up carving a walrus.

"It was nice though," she added.

Now 23 years old, Taylor Pokiak lives in Inuvik with her boyfriend and three-month-old daughter Alina, who she hopes she will one day carry on the family tradition.

"I told my boyfriend that the only toy she can have is a file and a piece of rock."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.