Helen Iguptak is a multi-visual artist. She has been an artist since a very early age. She started making dolls around the age of six by watching her mother making dolls. From there, as she became an adult, she has produced many different forms of art.

Helen Iguptak has been very active artistically and has attended Kivalliq Trade Shows (Rankin Inlet), the Nunavut Arts & Crafts Festival (held in Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay), the Northern Lights Trade Show and Conference (Ottawa), and the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik.

She will be attending the Adäka Cultural Festival in Whitehorse to be held this June 29–July 5, 2022.From June 27–29, the Arctic Arts Summit will be held in Whitehorse, Yukon, where representatives from six other countries will attend.

Helen Iguptak has had many wonderful highlights with her artistic skills, but there are those that stand out the most:  

From 2005–06, Taralikitaaq Arts Society ran doll-making projects with all seven Kivalliq communities. They had invited someone from Hollywood who had worked at Walt Disney Studios to work with the doll-makers with polymer clay. Every-doll maker excelled! 

In the autumn of 2007, the Taralikitaaq Arts Society (of which Helen Iguptak was the Chairperson), conducted a Kivalliq-wide Inuit Doll Exhibition where there were over 300 wonderful dolls exhibited. Three of Helen’s dolls were included.

From there, close to 100 dolls were chosen to be part of the Kivalliq Dolls traveling exhibition, which was shown in venues across Canada.

In 2010 the dolls were showcased during the Winter Olympics in Vancouver—in Richmond, BC and Canada’s Northern House, Vancouver, BC; then traveling to the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery and  Art Gallery of Windsor..

As the dolls were traveling across the country, some of the dolls got selected to be exhibited at Cambridge University.

Three of Helen’s dolls that were part of the traveling exhibition, are now on display at the new Kivalliq Regional Visitor’s Centre in Rankin Inlet.

Helen Iguptak’s beaded tuilik amauti was also on display at Canada’s Northern House during the Olympics and she has since made another one. Her first and second beaded amautiit have been on display and used at fashion shows during the Kivalliq Trade Shows in Rankin Inlet.

Helen Iguptak has taught home economics in junior and high schools in Rankin Inlet.  With her traditional and contemporary sewing skills, she is an inspiration and a role model to young people.

Helen has demonstrated her willingness to share her talents with others. She is mostly known to do workshops and demonstrations of her beading skills on small projects like beaded card holders, wallets, jewellery and slippers, and has been an instructor in making beaded amautiit.

Helen Iguptak has taken ceramics classes at the Match Box Gallery in Rankin Inlet and has been one of the art instructors.

She loves playing her accordion during the square dances and has traveled to perform as a drum dancer at the Nunavut Drum Dance Festivals.

Helen enjoys working with qiviut, the inner lining of muskox fur. Helen will take the qiviut off the skin, clean and fluff it before she spins it into qiviut wool. It being one of the warmest wools, she has knitted and made sweaters, socks, and mittens from it. 

She is well known for her dolls wearing beaded attires. Helen Iguptak regularly receives orders of her artwork and will be happy to show and sell her artworks during the Adäka Cultural Festival this summer.

This story is part of the Nunavut Spotlight. View more content from the Spotlight here.