Annie Taipanak (1931- )
Baker Lake, now living in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut
2006
28.5" x 25.5"

A beautiful wallhanging featuring elaborate stitchwork and bright colours. The central figure with blue face has the facial tattooing that only the elders remember today from their youth, when many women had them, attesting to their reaching adulthood and marriage. Beside her is a figure with red face, and surrounding them are 10 other Inuit busily going about their activities, two caribou (one with antlers, the other without), a bear and two standing waterfowl (geese perhaps). The blue faced figure has one arm raised and appears almost to be hailing the viewer as if to say "Remember us and how we used to live".

Taipanak's late husband, Jimmie Taipanak, was a sculptor and also a wallhanging artist -- one of the few men (along with Normee Ekoomiak, Peter Hallauk and Paul Kavik) to produce this artform. Her mother was the late Elizabeth Angrnaqquaq Qiayuq (1916-2004), one of the original generation of wallhanging artists who created this artform in the 1960s along with Annie.

Taipanak's work is included in the collections of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, and the University of Alberta.
One of her wallhangings was given as a gift of the Canadian people to the Prime Minister of Norway in 1980 by Prime Minister Trudeau.
Another was presented by the Governor General of Canada as a gift of the Canadian people to the President of Hungary in 2008.

The embroidery stitches used in this piece include: feather, cross, buttonhole, satin, fly and stem.