'It's what we see out the window.'

An Iqaluit art lover who bought one of Andrew Qappik's prints from the 1996 Pangnirtung print collection was surprised to see a markedly similar print from the same artist in the 2007 collection, which is on display at Iqaluit's Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum.

Several other prints in this year's Pangnirtung print collection also appear to closely resemble prints from previous years, leaving a local art critic to wonder whether the community's print shop has lost its creative spark or has reproduced its most successful prints simply to make money.

Not so, says Peter Wilson, general manager of the Uqqurmiut Inuit Artists Association print shop, weave studio and store in Pangnirtung.

It's just a coincidence that Qappik's 1996 and 2007 portrayals of the Pangnirtung fiord look uncannily alike – the resemblance is a result of the print shop's location, Wilson says: "It's what we see out the window. It wasn't intentional to reproduce that print."

Wilson says it was time for Qappik, an artist whose prints are always in high demand, to produce another landscape. He and Qappik were both aware that this year's print is similar to the 1996 one, but neither considered the similarity to be an artistic or a commercial problem.

"We know that famous artists everywhere do works on themes and variations," Wilson said. "Some artists have made a whole career out of doing something over and over. It's really up to them."

Qappik, 43, is well known as a printmaker and for his contribution to the Nunavut Coat of Arms. Many Inuit art experts applaud Qappik's prints for their grasp of form and deft use of pale shades.

Qappik and the Pangnirtung print shop's other young artists, who include Jolly Atagoyuk and Abigail Ootoova, enjoy a large amount of leeway in what they decide to produce, selecting their own images from a stock of more than 20,000 images.

"The image is not dictated," Wilson said. "We just don't hand images to artists and say ‘make this into a print.' We don't tell them ‘you can't do that.' They really have a lot of artistic freedom here, but sometimes it produces images which are not considered to be that saleable."

The Pangnirtung print collection, released in late June, is now at 20 galleries, mainly in southern Canada, and at Iqaluit's museum, where the prints are on display until the end of August.

Recently, three of the print shop's most dedicated artists – Enookie Akuluk, Ananaisie Alikatuktuk and Joanasie Maniapik, who was the chairman of the Uqqurmiut Inuit Artists Association – died. This year's collection is dedicated to these artists.

Unlike the West Baffin Cooperative, which successfully markets the annual Cape Dorset print collection world-wide, Pangnirtung's print shop is small and still heavily dependent on a $170,000 annual subsidy from the Nunavut Development Corporation.

For its sales, the shop relies heavily on the summer tourism season, which will see seven cruise ships in the community this year.

The collection is modest: the cost of a print ranges from $240 to $340 and the 2007 collection contains only 16 prints, making it one of the smaller collections in the print shop's 34-year history.

In the late 1980s, people in Pangnirtung fought to save their print and weave shops from closing by forming the Uqqurmiut Inuit Artists Association and buying assets from the old Pangnirtung Eskimo Co-operative.

Then in 1994, the print shop was ravaged by fire and a lithography press was lost. The printmakers moved shop to temporary facilities and managed to put out a collection that year.

The Uqqurmiut association, headed by the late Rose Okpik, raised money and constructed the airy facility that exists today.

"It's still a unique place," Wilson said. "It's pretty amazing that we're continuing to produce an annual print collection, that the tapestry studio is still hanging in there, and we're trying to address its problems."

The Pangnirtung weaving studio produces handwoven wall-hangings or tapestries – similar to the huge one produced for the Nunavut legislature in 2002.

The studio now produces smaller works, such as belts – and some tapestries – but there's been no new collection of tapestries since 2004.

The weave studio, like the print shop, was also originally part of a federal government program that created arts and crafts studios in Arctic communities during the early 1970s.

The studio was a place where women skilled in traditional clothing production could learn a new money-making craft. It's now Canada's largest hand-weaving studio.

But Wilson says it's challenging to find workers for the time-consuming, low-paying studio work.

"I think it's looked on as fuddy-duddy old ladies work. The younger generation isn't interested," Wilson said.

The six to eight women working full-time at the weave studio started receiving hourly wages in 2002, but they have since gone back to earning money based on what they produce.

These women are dedicated, Wilson says, but there are no new people coming in.

"It's just kind of status quo, but what will happen when they retire?"

Deborah Hickman, who worked with the community weavers in the past, is returning to Pangnirtung next year to provide more training and marketing expertise.

Past training programs produced limited results, Wilson says – but Hickman and a local manager-trainee will try to boost the profile of weaving.