Pitseolak: Pictures Out of My Life

by Dorothy Harley Eber and Peter Pitseolak

Book Overview

This is an illustrated oral biography created from recorded interviews by Dorothy Harley Eber in 1970. In these interviews, and through her drawings and prints, Pitseolak makes what Inuit call the old... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0295956321
• ISBN13: 9780295956329
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Length: 95 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Age Range: 22 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Pitseolak: Pictures out of My Life

If you are interested in trying to understand the Inuit sensibility this is a great read. Pitseolak became an artist, drawing pictures of her life, when she was in her fifties, gaining international recognition. The drawings and prints in this book embody joy and energy and fancy. The interviews were done when she was in her sixties. Pitseolak describes an idylic world despite a harsh and bone-tiring camp life and the untimely loss of so many loved ones. Though she leaves out the dark side this holds true to how she interprets her world. She is charmingly frank within this world view. Though her second or third cousin, Peter Pitseolak's account, is more factual (I think), as (I think) her drawings are, the interviews are remarkable. Dorothy Harley Eber's preface provides additional information and insights.Her work in interviewing Pitseolak is also an interesting study.In the end, even though in her life Pitseolak worked collectively with her kinsfolk in camps and in the Cape Dorset print shop, and even though our interest as readers may be about Inuit culture, her personality and her individuality sparkle in a universal way.