Art and industry

RANKIN INLET — Head down, pencil in hand, Steven Sateana scribbles down numbers as he calculates the answers to some math problems. Thirty minutes later, after he has completed the test, Sateana picks up his sketchbook to do some scribbling of a different kind: drawing and stenciling Inuit art.

At the Matchbox Gallery in Rankin Inlet, the 35-year-old former mechanic spends his mornings studying math, reading and writing. In the afternoons, students put away their books to develop more artistic skills.

Sateana is one of 11 adult students participating in the half-academic, half-art course called the Traditional Arts and Literacy Skills Program. The course, which began on Oct. 15, runs until Feb. 14.

Funded by Kivalliq Partners in Development, a federal-territorial grant organization, the program is designed to help adults upgrade their literacy and math skills, learn different art techniques and boost their self-confidence.

Sateana enrolled in the program, he said, to master the math and literacy skills needed to pass the high school equivalency test and get his GED. Other students join either to challenge themselves or to begin careers as artists.

On this Friday morning, students are adding and subtracting fractions and multiplying decimals during a pop math quiz. The classroom, a bright space with four long, wooden tables, is quiet as they concentrate on their work.

Instructor Jim Shirley paces around the room. He says he’s eager to see if the students have picked up the math skills he’s been teaching them all week.

“There are people here who are doing better in math than they ever did,” Shirley says proudly.

After students complete the test, Shirley works out one of the more challenging problems on the chalkboard: 6.9271 multiplied by 4.32. He explains each step as he goes.

As soon as the lesson is complete, the quiet room undergoes a change. The students pick up their sketchbooks and one of them pops a CD in the stereo and the room fills with blues tunes.

Sateana flips through his portfolio of art until he finds his drawing of a seal hunter. Today he wants to finish drawing the fine details and then make a stencil.

It might seem like a big leap to switch from adding fractions to sketching an Inuit seal hunter. But for Sateana, the math lessons and arts training are connected. Together, he says, they’ll give him skills to improve his life.

Sateana went as far as Grade 10 in school. He worked as a mechanic for 17 years, or half his life. But a knee injury earlier this year threw a wrench into his career.

Sateana banged up his knee while playing hockey, and five surgeries later it still isn’t back to normal. His doctor advised him that standing for long hours on the garage’s cement floor is too hard on his knee.

So the former mechanic is looking to start over. “My goal is to get my Grade 12. I want to do something with my life,” Sateana says.

Teaching life skills

Sateana’s enthusiasm is a comfort to instructor Jim Shirley.

Shirley, a painter and print maker by training, started the Matchbox Gallery 14 years ago. He wants his students to get whatever they can out of the Traditional Arts and Literacy Skills Program.

“This is not a course to prepare you to be a certified artist or to pass a GED test,” he says. “This is about getting people to work on themselves. We want people to get to know themselves and to be better people.”

Shirley’s knack for teaching is evident in the way he shows the class how to add fractions or explains the meaning of the word “character” during their reading lesson.

In the workshop, while students brush a glaze on their ceramic pieces, Shirley talks about his fascination with the program.

“I’m also growing as a result of doing this. I get to use my skills as an artist, as an adult educator and as a teacher. I get to contribute to the community and help people I know.”

Taking the challenge

Back in the classroom, student Irene Duncan rubs her thumb across a clay pot she’s creating. She’s trying to smooth out a bump before she begins etching designs on it.

The 36-year-old is unemployed and raising her son on her own. She isn’t here to become an artist or to gain job skills. She’s taking the course to challenge herself.

“I’m here to learn about myself, to see what I can do, to see how far I can go,” Duncan says.

She turns away from the pot and picks up her sketchbook. She flips the pages, describing each of her drawings. They tell the tale of her progress. The early drawings are simple shapes. The latest is a portrait of man.

“I know I’m going out with more than I came in with,” Duncan says.