'We try to use traditional material as much as we can'

BAKER LAKE – From the outside, the Jessie Oonark Centre looks like the closest thing in this hamlet to a downtown office block.

But inside the modern and imposing grey building, there's very little that's "downtown." And the four ladies busily sewing away on a grey Tuesday afternoon appear just fine with that.

Vivian Joedee, who's been working at the centre for three months, is sewing up seams on a pair of royal blue slippers. She could use a sewing machine, but cross-stitching the seams makes the slippers stronger, she says, although it's also time consuming.

"When you do cross-stitching it can take you two hours [per slipper]," Joedee says.

On this day, the four women are working by hand or with single sewing machines. But the centre also boasts a computerized behemoth of a sewing machine that can convert a pattern from a floppy disk into a pattern on four garments at a time.

And at the back of the shop, a modern silk-screening machine is idle after producing a batch of tote bags for Nunavut's community aerodrome radio stations. Meanwhile, another worker assembles Christmas tree ornaments.

The Jessie Oonark Centre's productions range from standard tourist fodder to more luxurious apparel such as slippers and scarves. On one side of the centre's store, hooded sweatshirts adorned with the phrase "Nunavut Rocks" and an image of an inuksuk hang on a rack across from fur-trimmed slippers.

Manager Kevin Kelly said the centre employs eight people, but has an economic impact beyond just those wages, with a roster of 25 to 30 more Baker Lake residents who sell art and materials to the centre.

"We try to use traditional material as much as we can," Kelly says.

It also serves as a workspace for those local artists, and holds regular training sessions for the community.

"Some of them would be employees looking for a refresher, some would be local artists," he says.

The centre also produces goods depicting the work of its namesake, including a run of tote bags featuring Jessie Oonark's famous print "Woman" that were included in a handout package at the Western Premiers Conference held in Iqaluit this summer.

Oonark had a short but influential career as an artist and printmaker. Born on the land in 1906, she didn't start working as an artist until 1959 and was forced to stop working in 1978 after surgery ravaged her hands.

But during her short career the combination of traditional Inuit sewing styles with new tools like felt-tip markers made her one of the earliest Inuit artists to win critical acclaim in the South. Her work remains a favourite of southern galleries.

For her body of work Oonark was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1984, shortly before her death a year later.

In 1992, the centre opened and started man­­u­facturing prints. Owned by the Government of Nunavut through the Nunavut Development Corporation, the centre lost more than $120,000 between 2001 and 2005.

But the mining boom that has brought a flood of outside workers into the barrens appears to be rubbing off on the centre, allowing it to break even last year, according to NDC's most recent annual report.