[Net-Gold] Inuit Fabric Artist Normee Ekoomiak Brought the North to the City

[David P. Dillard]

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Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:29:22 -0700 (MST)
From: George Lessard <me...@web.net>
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Subject: [Net-Gold] Inuit Fabric Artist Normee Ekoomiak Brought the North to the
City





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Inuit Fabric Artist Normee Ekoomiak
Brought the North to the City

He worked through pain and addictions
to produce his celebrated wall hangings

BUZZ BOURDON

OTTAWA ? From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, Nov. 23, 2009
11:03PM EST

<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/
national/inuit-fabric-artist-normee-
ekoomiak-brought-the-north-to-the-city/
article1375055/>

or

<http://bit.ly/4x8W5w>

[excerpt]

Normee Ekoomiak endured a great deal
of pain during his life, both
emotional and physical, but no matter
how bad things got, he always went
back to his art. Even when eight of
his fingers and both legs had to be
amputated in 2007, he tried for months
to keep stitching his celebrated
wall hangings before he finally
admitted defeat.

Renowned across North America for
his paintings, drawings and embroidered
tapestries, Mr. Ekoomiak was an Inuk
who illustrated Inuit life, myths and
culture. Praised in 2000 by a critic
as ?remarkable for their exquisite
use of form and colour,? much of his
art was autobiographical, displaying
the traditional way of life that he
experienced first-hand growing up in
northern Quebec during the 1950s.

Although Mr. Ekoomiak built an enviable
artistic reputation with his colourful
wall hangings made of woollen embroidery
and felt appliqué, his serious addiction
to drugs and alcohol during most of his
life led to periodic bouts of poverty
and homelessness.

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