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CAPE DORSET CARVINGS

At Nanooq we carefully view hundreds of carvings to always bring you the best selection by Cape Dorset artists. We refresh our stock regularly so check back often. The featured works of Inuit art on nanooq.ca’s carvings gallery represent a small sample of what is available. If you are unable to find what you are looking for, please contact us. We will do our best to source other works of art for you, based on your specifications.

Inuit carvings had been produced prior to contact with the Western world. Today, Inuit carvers continue to carve pieces entirely by hand. Power tools are occasionally used, but most artists prefer to use an axe and file, as this gives them more control over the stone. The final stage of carving is the polishing, which is done with several grades of waterproof sandpaper, and hours and hours of rubbing. The most common material is now soapstone, serpentine, either deposits from the Arctic, which range from black to light green in colour or orange-red imports from Brazil. Inuit soapstone carvings have become the most well known of all Inuit stone carvings however, other materials are used in Inuit sculptures and they include; caribou antlers, ivory from marine mammals, and the bone of various animals.