Bethel Native Artist Profile; Uncle John

Uncle John, John Kusayak, was born on Nunavac Island near Cape Mendenhall near the village of Chagas Fairgun in 1909. He and his family moved from spring camp to summer camp to fall camp and then to their winter site following the seals birds another game. Uncle John grew up in the care of his uncle as he lost his father when he was still very young. He said when my uncle Nayiram took me in I never went barefoot again. Uncle John learned life skills in the traditional Yupikwe, watching his elders in the Ozgip, practicing hunting with small bows and arrows and snares. After spending many hours observing the older men carving wooden bowls for eating and gathering masks for ceremonies and figurines and tribute boards for visitors, Uncle John also tried carving.

No one showed him how to make objects. He learned by watching. I really did not know how to make these by myself. I learned by constantly trying. I have learned also by copying the work that I have seen. I am now able to make these. As the elders he learned from did, Uncle John made his own tools. The ads for working on a larger piece of driftwood until it is ready for finer work and the curved knife for smoothing and making fine details for finishing work. He still uses the traditional curved carving knife. The idea of an artist and what that person made is different now from what Uncle John knew in his younger days. People who made arts and crafts were not many when I was young. At the present time, there are many artists learning to carve ivory and the numbers have

grown. Learning by themselves, teaching themselves, they are able to make better and better things. They are all alone. They are absolutely alone. They are all alone. They are all alone. They are all alone. They are all alone. They are all alone. They are all alone. They only made you tell Terian things for their own use, like the older men making of the kayak to the polo city. Uncle John always lived a subsistence lifestyle, living from the animals to sea and the land. He used some of his carvings for everyday living. Bolts to eat from masts and drums to dance with, ladles to dip and stir. Cribbage boards

and figurines he would sell to visitors on the island, or mail to Sipka, or Juno, to sell in shops there. His money provided him with little extras and some necessities, such as steel and foodstuffs. They did not make these things when I was young. They did not know them. Another bite. When I was young and first started carving, there were no places to sell things until someone came along and bought them. At that time, we even traded the things we carved for chewing them. I used to be thankful for that, as if it was a big sale. At that time, there were not very many gussocks. When we first saw white men, they seemed

unpredictable. We used to be afraid of gussocks, the ones that arrived in ships. It is easier to sell things now, because there are many gussocks to buy these crafts that we made. I also saw my carvings in Anchorage when I am there.

At that time, the ship comes behind them. Where there is so far behind it is Ayakolomatamantayasamam Uncle John uses mostly materials that are native to Nunavac Island and making his artwork. He uses driftwood that has been gathered from the ocean beaches, ivory from the walrus, paints from the clays found in the earth and quills from bird feathers. He used to gather all his materials by

himself from Nunavac and Nelson Islands, but now he gets his relatives to gather these materials for him. Uncle John moved from Nunavac Island to Bethel in 1980. He lives here with his wife and four stepchildren. He has become well known locally and within the anthropological field for his beautiful and traditional Nunavac style of carving. Dorothy Jean Ray cited Uncle John in her book, Allute and Eskimo Art, as the only person still carving the Nunavac elongated animal style ivory tusk. Uncle John's work can be viewed in the permanent collection and the museum shop at the Uphthic Regional Museum in Bethel. Uncle John participated as one of the master carvers and a

local mass carving workshop and a apprentice studied under him and a finished mask is now used by the Bethel native dancers in their dance performances. After I think about what I am going to make and how it could turn out, I go ahead and make it even though it doesn't turn out as good as I wanted to. Some have to open the walking room. The things I make now are not as good as the things I used to make when I was younger.

I do not have as much material to work with now as I used to not working and not making this artwork is not good. When you do not carve you are short of money but if you do work you are able to get what you want. When I carve then I can earn enough money to get some tea. I think I will cut one off. Ah

He grew up living the nomadic cubic lifestyle of that time, traveling with the game, looking for good fishing. Nick was taught life skills in the casket by his elders, here he learned to make his hunting implements and carving tools to hunt them to fish and the traditions of his people. He learned by watching.

Nick moved to Casigla where he married his wife, Elina. They eventually moved to Bethel in 1943, where they lived in a tent until Nick built their home. Bethel provided an income for Nick where he did a variety of different jobs, repairing boats, working at the Somel and commercial fishing. Nick began building houses and for many years this was his major means of employment. Some of his homes are still lived in along the first avenue area of Bethel. At that time, Nick primarily carved an ivory. Today he carves mainly in wood, preferring to use his skills at crafting wooden masks. His mass carving has taken him as far as Washington D.C. to the Smithsonian Institution and has won him awards and carving competitions. Nick is a member of the Bethel native dancers. He sings and drums with them performing and teaching the area youths. He also serves as a deacon in Bethel's Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. Today, Nick carves both contemporary wooden masks and traditional functional objects,

wooden bowls, drums for dancing, paddles for it by x, and wooden handle dancing fans. He mainly carves to supplement his family's income, to pay the bills which come from the relatively new cash-dominated economy that has become part of the way of life in the Yukon Tescoquim Delta. Nick's carving grows out of his thinking. Anything made without an idea won't be anything when done. Thinking of different ways to carve something is fun. You're always thinking of how to complete whatever it is you're working on. That ways are easiest or fastest to complete the night of it. Always thinking of how best to complete it. Always thinking. If an idea turns out to look like it's not what you want, you stop and try it another

way. That is how it is to work on these. You make as much as you want using your ideas. Nick attributes the carving skills that he has achieved today to his traditional subsistence lifestyle. The men in his village were always busy. If they were not hunting and fishing for the animals and fish which were the life of the people, they were making or mending the tools by Ux or sleds that enabled them to catch their food supply.

In the winter and spring, the men would carve in the community house. In the summer, when the weather is nice, they'd carve anywhere. Even outside the community house. During the fall months, people would travel to their fish camps. There they would carve anywhere, outside or in their tents. They would work on big things outside and small ones inside the tent. Men were always busy. They'd always be busily carving something. They never saw anyone that wasn't carving. Nick learned his carving in the normal way for a young boy in the early 1900s. Men gathered together when carving, sharing with each other. Young boys learned the skills of shaping the wood into functional objects by watching their

fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers and cousins. They used the two traditional carving tools, the ads and the curved carving knife. Whenever my late father wasn't using his curved knife, I'd pick it up in carve. Sometimes I'd get scolded because it got dull. So he made me a curved knife just for my use. I began carving just by watching the carvers and trying to match what they made. I'd make my own arrows by imitating how the carvers made theirs. Even though they weren't perfect, it didn't matter as long as they were done. As long as you tried, that was the important thing. Things would begin to take shape as they neared completion. The ads and the curved knife were the tools used for making wooden objects, whether large pikes and sleds or small individual serving bowls.

The first rough cuts were made with the ads, and then the finer polished shaping was made with the curved knife. All of the men's equipment was made by hand. Even the ads and curved knives were made by the carvers themselves. It is difficult to believe that just these two tools, the ads and the curved knife were used to make such different things, very big things, as well as small ones. The curved knife is the most important tool to nick. Today he uses some modern tools in making objects, but still uses his curved knife to complete the finish work. He can make a slotted wooden trap for catching blackfish in small streams, with only the use of this one tool. They also made fish traps using their carving tools.

I made one fish trap using the carver as a slicer. I carved it and smoothed it, just using that one tool. I never left it behind when I went somewhere like the tundra. Out there men would stop and work on something they were carving. Even though they had other tools, the carver was the one most used. They'd use it to finish almost anything, following the shape of the object. Nick is one of just a few delta wood carvers who continue to make wooden bowls. wooden bowls were common implements in traditional Yupik life. Each person had his or her own bowl for eating. Larger serving bowls were common, as were very large wooden containers used in storing

water. We each had our own wooden bowls that we didn't share with others. They were made for us. The wooden bowls weren't used by just anybody except the person that it was made for. The adults and children had wooden bowls that were just their size, all different sizes. When they fed visitors, though, they'd use any wooden bowl. Nick explains his process for constructing wooden bowls. This wooden bowl is for women.

These bowls for women are shaped like this. This part is smooth. Here is where it is connected. You finish carving this part first, then smooth it with a curved knife. Then it is soaked in boiling hot water. Once it gets hot, you bond it into shape. When that is done, you connect these two pieces. They are glued and then allowed to dry. Then the part for the bottom is carved, using the outer part to measure with. This takes a long time to do. You keep measuring and smoothing. While you do that, you put it together to see if it fits, making it fit tightly. Using pressing, thinning as you go, it finally snaps into place. But before it snaps into place, just before it begins to fit, using part of the curved

knife, do this, pressing it. And then it snaps into place, not to come off again. A little water makes it stick together tightly and not come apart. Nick continues to carve wooden objects today. His masks are sold in the shop with the Eutavic Museum in Bethel, and to individuals who ask him to make them. Currently, he is teaching wood carving to students. He passes on his idea of how a student can best learn. I used to see the elders carving all the time. They used to advise us and tell us to carve as much as we could on our own. And though it didn't come out looking perfect, a person doesn't learn by being idle.

He won't learn just by sitting and watching. If a person just watches and hasn't tried the carving, when he goes to carve it, it won't be done the right way. But if he tries, even though it's done poorly, the carving will just get better and better. If the hands learn how to do it, it will get better. At first, the work isn't so good, but as a person keeps carving, it improves. The work gets better. That's how we were told. We were never helped while we made something. They'd watch us, but wouldn't help us. Even when it wasn't done correctly or perfectly, they didn't say so. They'd just tried by ourselves, thinking of how better we would try to get it.