frozen rock s tudio a house of Inuvialuit Talents In the old City Market

of Yellowknife, you will find Frozen Rock Studio, a garage that has been converted into a studio for carvers from the I sr and beyond. The white dust from their work covers the little front yard and every inch of their work space, but despite the mess, the men are happy in their studio. Today, Derrald Taylor (Tuktoyaktuk), Ernest r aymond (Tuktoyaktuk) and p atsy Ekpakohak ( u lukhaktok) are working.

Derrald’s current piece is a drum dancer. h e shows it to us as he brushes off some of the dust made by his electric drummel. “I will oil it after this, to bring out the colour in the stone,” he said. He works with soapstone, bone and antler. “When I first started I wasn’t as good as I am now. I am known for my detail work. I try to work a lot on detailing than on the style. The style will come later.” His work is sold at galleries such as the Gallery of the Midnight s un, and to private dealers some who are in Vermont and California.

“I had to do a lot of footwork. In my first four years here, I had to talk a lot and show my pieces around, but from there on it got a lot better, because people kept coming down to see the work we do. I had a lot of artists come here to carve with me.” p atsy Ekpakohak is working on a beluga whale carved from a muskox horn. Ernest Raymond is etching his final mark, his signature, on the bottom of a sculpture. The artists are here because they can learn from each other, and also because yellowknife is a good place to sell their pieces.

“If we work alone we won’t do as much, but when there’s three to four of us here, we’ll just keep busy. o nce in a while we’ll drop all our tools and start telling stories…then we’ll go right back to working again,” he said.

Patsy

The dancing bear

by Derrald Taylor

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