Handle with care

CHARLOTTE PETRIE

Visitors to the Kitikmeot Heritage Society in Cambridge Bay not only get to admire the work of local artists, in one case they can actually meet the artist by having him pulled out of one of his Grade 12 classes.

Ashley Otokiak has lived in Cambridge Bay all his life. With the help of shop teacher Dan Wilmot at Kilinik High School, Ashley has triumphed over blindness to make and sell stained-glass art.

He is one of three students who currently have their work displayed and on sale at the society office, located inside the high school. For this reason, archivist Colleen Rusk can easily arrange a spontaneous meeting between artist and buyer.

And meeting Ashley is one opportunity you wouldn’t want to miss. The student is curious and funny – with a flare for telling stories.

After seeing several stained-glass pieces at a local bazaar a few months ago and striking up a conversation with Wilmot, Rusk found out the kids were making them in shop class.

Impressed, Rusk quickly offered to display the students’ work at the heritage society office.

“We encourage anyone with a craft to display it and possibly sell it. We’re hoping the children’s art will be a good draw for tourists coming in this spring,” she says.

Meanwhile, Ashley is busy in the shop room demonstrating his skill of cutting and breaking the glass with Wilmot’s guidance. Ashley is legally blind and has been tooling his stained-glass trade with Wilmot’s assistance during class.

Together, they cut a line from one end to the other before Ashley performs the final touch – one light tap on the glass and it breaks evenly down the centre.

But his favourite part about making stained-glass pieces is the scraping. This is where the edge of the glass is softened with a piece of metal. This task Ashley can do all on his own.

“I have to scrape it before we put the tape on it or else it will cut the tape,” he explains.

Ashley’s artistic background includes making harmonicas from playdough for his friends and family. But it was Wilmot, not playdough that gave him the necessary skills to handle stained-glass tools of trade.

Wilmot says the kids are pretty good with the sharp tools, but getting them to wear goggles is the toughest part of his job.

“I go ballistic when they don’t wear them when we are soldering. We’ve had a few minor burns but nothing serious,” Wilmot says sparking a laugh from Ashley.

“The biggest cuts are when they don’t keep the paper clean and start the next one. They know, they’ve been told, but when they get into what they are doing…”

The sort of intensity he is talking about is what Ashley appears to be experiencing as he continues to scrape with great attention and care.

Ashley says he will continue to make stained-glass after he graduates this year but is still looking for an assistant to replace Wilmot. For now he will continue working on his latest pièce de résistance.