Politicians’ hot air helps preserve art

JOHN THOMPSON

Seals, caribou, geese, and other creatures spiral up an intricately carved narwhal tusk inside the assembly chambers of Nunavut’s legislature.

The carving, made by Lew Philip in 1995, used to be stored in Iqaluit’s Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum until last fall. Then it moved to the legislature, and it started to crack.

Blame a slight drop in humidity. The difference between the museum and the legislature was tiny, but ivory is the most fickle of carving materials, and the change was enough to cause tiny, hairline fractures.

Once noticed, the carving was moved into the assembly chambers, where hot air expelled by politicians keeps the room more moist than elsewhere in the building. As it turns out, long-winded speeches could actually help preserve art.

The tusk is just one of over 200 works of Inuit art housed inside the legislature, and much of it is slowly eroding inside the building. That’s because dirt, dry air, ultraviolet rays and heat can hurt all art work over time. Professionally curated museums carefully control these factors to preserve the life of art, but no such facilities exist in Nunavut.

Last winter the legislature hired Colleen Healey, who was born and raised in Nunavut, to assess the art collection and come up with recommendations to preserve it. She’s currently Nunavut’s only trained art conservator, and a cramped office serves as her lab these days, as she spends a few more weeks cleaning art work before heading off to Scotland, where she will carry out a year-long internship with museums in Aberdeen and Loanhead.

“At this point I’m just keeping these stable,” she says, carefully wiping a model kayak made from sealskin and wood with a cotton swab. She jokes her job is to be a “glorified janitor,” but even the water she uses to clean is specially distilled, to remove minerals that might otherwise accumulate and stain.

Not everyone is so careful. Have a look at the white marble drum dancer that stands by the entrance to the stairwell. Bobby Anavilok from Kugluktuk carved it in 2002, and over the years the drum tightened and began to crack. One day a well-intentioned visitor smeared vegetable oil over its surface as a remedy. When Healey saw it later, the oil had dried and crystallized. “It looked like someone rubbed sprinkles all over it,” Healey says.

Follow the stairs up and you’ll find a series of bronze sculptures, made by former Joamie School teacher Ian Smith in 2002 and 2003, which are slowly turning green. That’s probably because they’re within reach of idle hands and aren’t covered with glass.

Oils from skin react with the metal and cause it to corrode. Left untreated, a bronze coin that’s been handled will eventually have fingerprints etched into its surface.

Back in the assembly chambers, sealskin panels have begun to tear at the seams. The only permanent fix would be an expensive one: a humidifier unit attached to the air ducts could solve the problem, but would cost over $50,000 to buy and install. Fixing and replacing the panels is a more realistic solution, Healey admits.

But she hopes the legislature will go for less expensive measures, like buying UV filters for the lights and windows, which she said could add decades to the lives of some art work. Some rooms in the legislature are six times the recommended brightness for storing art.

Healey presented three possible schemes to help preserve the artwork, beginning with the “dream” option, which includes the assembly’s humidifier at $60,000, followed by two more modest options, at $10,000 and $5,000. She hasn’t heard any commitments, “but they’re being really positive.”

Some art work probably won’t be saved unless an environmentally-controlled museum is built, she says. Elsewhere in the building hangs a painting of an Inuit campsite by D.G. Lent, made in 1964, which has started to peel and flake at the edges. The painting needs care, but it’s too fragile to ship south, Healey says.

“It’s a great piece of art, it’s deteriorating, and there’s nothing we can do about it, until there’s a museum.”

Museums consider relative humidity of around 50 per cent to be ideal. In contrast, the relative humidity in Iqaluit is about two per cent, Healey says. The warm, dry interior of the legislative assembly has even caused wooden door frames to begin to warp, as well as generating static electricty that plays havoc with computers.

Only recent works of art are stored in Nunavut. Ancient Thule or Dorset artifacts are stored outside the territory, either in the Prince of Wales Museum in Yellowknife or the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, where there’s a suitable environment to store them.

With so many other pressing causes in the territory, like a shortage of housing and infrastructure in every community, a museum won’t be a government spending priority for many. But Healey says the idea of Nunavut is to help preserve Inuit identity, and part of that identity lies in pieces of the past that should be brought back to their rightful home.
“You have to learn about your history. It’s the same as language. It’s about where you came from.”