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Symposia

From July 9, 1999 until August 3, 1999 I was on Baffin Island in Iqaluit. I was invited to attend "Our Life in Stone" A sculpture symposium to celebrate the forming of the new territory Nunavut involving sculptors from all across the north as well as south of Canada. Working and living with iniut people proved to be a wonderful and profound experience. I had a very definite idea of what I wanted to do at the Symposium. What I did however, was a direct result of my experience in the north rather than of ideas from the south I heard so many sad stories from the inuit about the forced settlement and modern life in the north as well as immigrant or seasonal workers that come to the north to make a lot of money or to escape troubled lives in the south. I saw Iqaluit as a cross between Dodge City and the Foreign Legion. The granite sculpture Listener of Sad Stories evolved from a dream. Based on the interaction with people I met in Iqaluit, the sculpture is meant to listen to the sad stories on people in the north. Over the years, as the sad stories come to reside in the stone, the sculpture will begin to weep. It is a message of hope. Acknowledging the pain and sadness of the past is a beginning of healing. Facing south, the figure points east to the rising sun indicating the new day. The sculpture will be on display in a public place in Iqaluit for the next 1000 years.