LARRY AHVAKANA (Ullaaq)Inupiaq Born: Fairbanks, 1946 Residence in 1986: Suquamish, WA Personal statement by the artist from "ALASKAMEUT '86, An Exhibit of contemporary Alaska Native Masks" edited by Jan Steinbright, Institute of Alaska Native Arts, 1986, page 10. "I grew up in Barrow until I was 7 and then moved to Anchorage after and went to public schools. My grandfather did some carving and my dad did a little bit of baleen basketry. But what really got me interested in artwork was watching my mom. She does skinsewing. She did it all her life and she's still doing it. Just watching her, I guess gave me the energy and the drive to work in the arts. I started just drawing a lot. In public schools you take art classes. I did that a lot, kind of experimented in other materials they use like copper plate, drawing, enameling and other crafts. "Although I live in Washington State, the Eskimo images are imprinted in my mind from when I was small, growing up, hearing the language. I don't have any deep explanation about why I make masks. It's just a form I use. I like looking at the older masks, listening to the songs before and listening to them now and seeing some of the masks they use. But I don't take my work literally from the old masks. I just use what pleases me, I guess. "I do a lot of portrait masks of people in wood and I'm starting to use some glass. I think the quality of the glass, using it behind light or using florescents, would be kind of nice. And neon, using neon would be kind of neat, fun. Glass has been an alternative material for me. "You do physical work on a carving. You carve a piece out of stone, wood, whatever, but glass, you're constructing. You're redefining the material by heat. I did a lot of blown forms, containers, things like that. It's just an alternative from a physical, working at stone or wood, because glass is such an immediate material. You have to work with it hot at a certain temperature or else it will cool down and break. It has a rhythm to it. "The fused glass mask form that is in the show is of a whaler looking over the open leads for sign of approaching whales. "In the future I'd like to use glass in a larger scale, combine it to maybe do panels in glass, construction for architecture." |