Cape Dorset Inuit Artists give Support to Handmade Carpets from Original Art

Dorset Fine Arts, the marketing division of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-Operative Ltd. In Cape Dorset, Nunavut has given an exclusive license to Inunoo & Associates to develop and market its exclusive line of handmade carpets & tapestries under the label, Inunoo Inuit Carpets.

Canadian Inuit artists, Kenojuak Ashevak, and Ningeokulk Teevee are notable artists in Cape Dorset and they have supported this project and are pleased with the design applications based on their work.  The royalty, which will accrue directly to them, is also an important source of supplemental income.

Inunoo Inuit Carpets are made in collaboration with the skilled women and men weavers from our selected workshops in Nepal and Thailand. The carpets are hand knotted and or hand tufted using 100% hand spun Himalayan and New Zealand wools and Chinese silk in 80-100 knots/sq. inch in various cut and loop pile heights and constructions. Each carpet series is limited in quantities of 6 to 8 carpets with each one being unique in coloration and construction, signed by the artist and numbered. No two carpets will be identical. Designs are retired after completion of the series.
Custom designed carpets in any size greater than 5' x 7', coloration and construction from the existing design group is also available on special order.  Alternative drawings used for carpets designs are subjects to the artist’s approval.


When people first see the simple but unusual rug designs that characterize Inunoo Inuit Carpets, their first question is “What does Inunoo mean?” The answer, says founder Doug Mantegna, explains the deep significance of the rugs and his own mission to introduce Inuit art to a larger public via a new medium. Doug explains that in the language of Canada’s northern Inuit, Inunoo means “of the people” and each rug design, created by a significant contemporary Inuit artist, speaks of Inuit cultural values. “Those values -- concern and care for the earth -- fall right in line with everything we try to achieve in our carpets,” Doug says.

An experienced textile designer, Doug has only recently begun producing his hand knotted, hand tufted wool and silk rugs. He has, however, long been inspired by the art of indigenous people. “While working with local weavers in Lesotho, South Africa many years ago,” he says, “I had a natural attraction for their lifestyle and a feeling I wanted to be a part of it somehow.”

As a Canadian, he naturally turned his sights to the arts and people of Canada’s far north. While consulting as a textile designer for the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, he spent much time in the Arctic where he met the iconic octogenarian artist Kenojuak Ashevak. Her prints, which Mantegna has now translated (with her collaboration) into Inunoo’s wool and silk “Shaman” series, are among the most sought after prints of any artist in Canada. He also works with gifted younger Inuit artist Ningeokuluk Teevee.
Doug sees his carpets as an extension of Inuit art. “I’m just a facilitator. My interest is to introduce Inuit art to more people through a textile format…just push this a little further,” he says. And so he has. The limited edition of five by seven foot signed rugs is already in art galleries and private collections. Even more important to Doug, however, is that the rugs with designs created by indigenous people of Canada and woven by local craftspeople in Nepal and Thailand are as breathtakingly beautiful, giving the word Inunoo, of the people, even more power.

Inunoo Inuit carpets carry the GoodWeave label by Rugmark, the best possible assurance that the carpet was made without child labour. The Rugmark Foundation is an internationally recognized not-for-profit organization working to end child labour and offer educational opportunities to children in India, Nepal and Pakistan.

 GoodWeave   http://www.goodweave.org/home.php

Inunoo InuitCarpets   http://www.goodweave.org/spotlight_det.php?     cid=88&interview_id=94