Mary’s office was an exhibition space in itself. Every wall and surface, other than her desk and a glass coffee table, which were themselves stacked with papers, was covered in works of art, tapestries, paintings or sculptures. She motioned us to sit on a rather hard antique settee, while she sat down on a considerably more comfortable chintz-covered chair, one she clearly spent a lot of time in. Ooleepeeka took a seat on the ergonomically correct desk chair, which looked like it was seldom used.
“Do you have them in there?” Mary pointed to the leather portfolio I’d been lugging around. She brushed aside a pile of documents to clear a space on the coffee table.
I heard a quiet gasp as I laid the drawings down, one after another in their order. For the next several minutes she carefully studied each drawing while Leslie and I sat somewhat bemused by this intense interest. After all, they were just a set of simple drawings. But I could see that Ooleepeeka’s interest was also piqued as she too slowly scanned each drawing in turn.
When Mary finally leaned back into her chair, I couldn’t help but notice a rather excited glint in her eye.
“Please forgive me,” she said. “You both must be dying for a cup of coffee. Cappuccinos? Great.”
After passing our orders on to her male admin assistant, who sported a shaved head and a pearl drop nose ring, Mary turned back to us. “First, these aren’t drawings. They are soapstone prints.”
“Sorry. I just assumed that because the figures are in outline, they’d been drawn in ink or charcoal.”
She dismissed my lack of expertise with a shrug. “Second, something which is quite unique, the artist who drew the pictures also carved the soapstone and did the actual printing on the paper. Rarely does this happen. Usually the artist doesn’t have the skill to do the carving, particularly with soapstone, which is both very heavy and quite fragile. One mistake, and you have to start over again. So usually an experienced stone carver is used.”
“How can you tell this didn’t happen with these prints?” I asked.
Mary pointed to an Inuit print of a fluffed-up owl hanging above her desk. “Both names appear on the print.” She pointed to the small square syllabic signature in the upper left hand corner. “Take this print of the Little Owl. The first characters denote the artist. In this case ‘Pitseolak’ and the next set the printer. This last character, the red arch, indicates where the print was made, Cape Dorset.”
“Does this mean there is only one name on my prints?” Leslie asked.
“Precisely.”
At this point, her admin assistant came in carrying a tray of oversized cups brimming with foaming milk and a plate of shortbread cookies.
“And do you know who the artist is?” I asked.
“I have a fairly good idea, because I recognize the style. Although I am surprised, because he didn’t normally make the stonecut.” She lifted up one of the prints and scanned it carefully. “But I don’t recognize the syllabic signature. However, Ooleepeeka will be able tell us, won’t you, dear?”
“Yes. The name is Suula.” She beamed proudly as she tugged to pull down her denim skirt, which had ridden up on her chunky thighs.
Mary started. “Suula? Are you sure?”
“Yes, positive.” Ooleepeeka beamed back at her. “I had a teacher with this name.”
Appearing somewhat baffled, Mary placed the picture back on the table, picked up another one and studied this one just as carefully, then she nodded. “My apologies. I was a little too hasty. Curiously enough, given our previous conversation, I thought they were Joly Quliiks. But although the style is similar to his, I can see now that it doesn’t reflect the same level of maturity or refinement of line. Too bad.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, helping myself to one of the shortbread cookies.
“As you know his work has appreciated considerably since he died.”
“I hadn’t realized he was dead.”
“Yes, it happened many years ago. If these uncatalogued prints could be attributed to him, they would command a good price. But since they are by this unknown artist Suula, I’m afraid they won’t be worth much. In fact, one could almost accuse this artist of copying his style.”
She tossed the rejected picture back onto the table. It caught on the edge and fell to the floor. Leslie hastily bent over to pick it up.
“I don’t care about their value,” I shot back, annoyed by her high-handed manner. “It’s the artist and his whereabouts I’m interested in. You said unknown artist. Does this mean you don’t know who this Suula is?”
“I’ve never heard of him, and I’m au courant with most Inuit artists, at least the ones that matter. Perhaps, Ooleepeeka, you know of this artist?”
The graduate student shook her head. “Suula is probably a female name, though with Inuit names you can’t always tell. And I’m afraid I don’t know the community where these were done either. It’s called Naujalik, meaning ‘place of seagulls’.”
I turned back to Mary. “I suppose you’re not familiar with this town either?”
“It’s certainly not a recognized art centre like Cape Dorset or James Lake. By the way, in case you didn’t know, James Lake has been renamed Tasilik. When Nunavut came into being, several towns took on Inuktitut names. In this case, Tasilik means ‘place with a lake’, isn’t that right, Ooleepeeka?”
She patted her grad student patronizingly on the thigh. Ooleepeeka stiffened and moved her leg away.
“You must appreciate that there are only a handful of places in the Arctic which are recognized for their consistently excellent work. And this Naujalik isn’t one of them. I’m afraid that these are just someone’s amateurish efforts.” Mary stopped to sip her foaming coffee.
At this point, I wanted only to leave. Clearly we were going to get no further useful information from this overbearing snob. But Leslie, more tolerant and more forgiving, spoke up. “I realize these drawings aren’t something you normally deal with, Mary, but perhaps there is someone who handles this type of amateurish art who might know. As I mentioned on the phone, the whereabouts of this artist is important to us.”
“One thing you should be aware of, Leslie, is that these prints are much older than you probably think. At least twenty to thirty years old, if not older, so the artist may no longer be alive.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“It’s the paper, dear.” She paused for another sip of coffee while I had to bite my tongue not to shoot back, “I’m not your dear.”
“See those tiny brown dots on the paper? Those are mold marks. They develop over time if the artwork has been exposed to cardboard or other inferior paper materials. Plus, this type of paper was generally used in the 1960s and ’70s. Today they use a much finer quality, one less prone to deterioration.”
“Okay, so the artist may be dead, but someone sent these to my mother, and we want to know who. The only name we have at the moment is this Suula. So please, if you know of someone who could help us find him or her, let us know, and we’ll be on our way.”
She rested her chin on her tented fingers and peered at me over the frame of her glasses. “Yes, I can understand why you would like to speak to the artist. The scenes depicted in these prints are of your father’s plane crash, aren’t they?”
“We believe so.”
“And you are assuming that the artist witnessed the crash, aren’t you?” She didn’t wait for my reply but continued speaking. “I find these three prints rather interesting. They tell a story. Now the Inuit, like all indigenous people, are wonderful storytellers. And many of their artworks do tell a story. But usually they depict just one aspect of the event or folktale, or if several events are depicted, they are contained on the same page. Never have I seen a story spanning several drawings. Do you know if there are any more?”
“What? You want to see my father’s plane splat on the ground with his body beside it?”
She cast a shocked glance at Leslie then back to me. “Sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”
“Look, I don’t think we should take up any more of your time.” I started to collect the pictures.
“Why don’t you let me do some asking around? Some of my colleagues might know of this Suula. Ooleepeeka can also inquire of her friends up north. I’m sure we will find this artist for you. We’ll let Leslie know, okay?”
I grudgingly accepted her offer.
As Leslie and I made our way back through the gallery, I stopped at the Joly Quliik exhibit to see if I could tell if the style in my mother’s prints was the same as his. With my uneducated eye, I couldn’t readily discern any similarities. But then, there weren’t any people in those prints.