JON IPALOOK

“I am working on baleen. It’s a hobby I have worked with over the years, at different times of the year I will work at it. It just happens to be a really nice time of the year to be working with it. Can’t beat the weather. I picked this hobby up as a youngin, growing up here with my grandparents. I was raised here throughout the whaling season, sent up from Kotzebue [Alaska], so I got to start really young. I just kept with it and worked with it over the years and handed it out to family members as gifts. Throughout the years it (carving) has grown in it’s own popularity with family members and other people wanting to purchase it. I am working on a whales tail today and it will be a display piece for a bracelet set with earring hangers. They had a really good harvest (of bowhead whale) this year, so I am very fortunate to be working with some awesome material.” — Jon Ipalook is Inupiaq and lives in Point Hope, Alaska. Point Hope Inupiat have been traditionally hunting bowhead whales for food for generations. In addition to being an important food source, the bowhead whale also provides materials (baleen and bone) used by Inuit artists.