BETHEL -- It was all a big art experiment in late May. Could a group of adults with different talents and from different parts of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta work together to create a new kind of doll?
Ivory carvers and wood workers, mask maskers and doll makers, potters, painters and musicians all joined together for what was supposed to be a two-day art symposium. Then some kept going. The project extended into extra days, alongside a separate doll making workshop.
In the end, the artists in the symposium created two Yup'ik dancing dolls. One is a new style -- a little man made of wood that is both a marionette and, with wires, posable for display.
"It's a collaboration, so it's pretty radical," said Marvin Kiokun, who is originally from Mekoryuk on Nunivak Island in the Bering Sea and has lived in Bethel for years.
The project at the Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center came about through a grant from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Native Art Center. It's one in a series of classes -- how to sew with fish skin and seal gut, how to make grass baskets and dance sticks, how to make knives -- intended to promote Alaska Native arts and skills that are fading, said Reyne Athanas, cultural center coordinator.
John McIntyre, originally from the village of Eek near the Kuskokwim River mouth and a longtime Bethel resident, carved a tiny, intricate mask out of driftwood that included two circles of thin, bent wood surrounding a face and a ship on top. It was a miniature replica of one he made decades ago to depict a shaman's story that predicted the arrival of the first white people who sailed to the mouth of the Kuskokwim River.
McIntyre's son, Mike, along with Kiokun and Christopher Nevak, carved wooden doll parts. Neva Mathias, a master doll maker from Chevak, made a fur parka. Others in the cadre of artists and aspiring artists added details and ideas.
"This one is a real dancer," John McIntyre said midway through the project. "He'll have his own drum, his own mask." The group was inspired by an old ventriloquist doll modeled on the late Bethel storyteller Maggie Lind.
As they worked, men sawed, carved and sang. McIntyre was using a box cutter but he also had traditional tools on hand. He makes his own crooked knives. He secures the blade to a walrus ivory handle with tightly wrapped spruce root.
McIntyre has taught workshops himself and his son Mike is growing as an artist, too. A medley of Mike's work -- a mask in progress, handmade ulus, photos, paintings, a fish skin belt, a musical CD -- was on display at the museum within the cultural center.
"What's exciting for me is that every person in here is an artist," Athanas said. "I can feel their creative juices just -- pshew! -- going through the roof. That's what happens when artists get together."
Mathias was flown in from Chevak to be part of the collaboration and teach the doll making workshop, in which students each made their own little Yup'ik dolls modeled on her smiling-face style.
Villages could try the same thing, teaching traditional Native arts in workshops especially geared for children, she said.
"That's what I'm hoping for," said Mathias, a Yup'ik immersion teacher aide. "That's my dream, to start something like that. For after school or in the community."
Already, a few days are set aside for cultural heritage week. But she would like to see more.
"That's what I think would be spectacular," Athanas said.
Many young people don't even know how to mend a rip, much less make art by hand, Mathias said.
She taught the students in the doll making class to start with the faces: leather ovals stitched with tiny tucks of dental floss to shape the nose, the eyes, the personality. They formed heads from old socks rolled tight. They made patterns out of repurposed file folders. They created body frames of wire and miniature mukluks or piluguuk, little boots decorated with bits of fur and trim. One student made boots out of fish skin and plans to make a fish skin parka.
For her own dolls, Mathias shapes faces from seal skin from animals hunted by her son.
"The artists -- and I find this true of most artists -- are aware of everything that's around them, their environment, their supplies, the medium they are using, and how to present that in such a way that is not only beautiful and artistic but also representative of the things they feel and think," Athanas said.
Both McIntyres work for the Association of Village Council Presidents. But asked whether he is a part-time artist, John McIntyre said that was the wrong question.
"You don't put it in context of a job," he said. "It's a way to keep connected with my culture and my family."
He carves because he wants to express himself, not because he has to, he said.
Another artist, Christopher Nevak, talked about how carving an ivory tusk connects him to the animal hunted for food. He barters with family on the coast for ivory. He tries to use every piece, "to pull that beauty, that life out of that one tusk."
The collaboration and workshop were eye-opening even for Eva Malvich, director of the Yup'ik museum in the cultural center.
"I almost never get to see the process for artwork," she said. "Usually I just deal with the artist and their finished piece. It's the process that interests me."
She watched as the artists decided on a particular material, shaving wood until a hand emerged, crinkling leather until a nose popped up.
"We were told everything has a spirit, even a piece of wood," said Malvich, originally from Mekoryuk. "You have to respect it."
The museum and cultural center hadn't tried a collaboration before, but may do so again, she said. Artists want a place where they can spread out. In the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where many homes are small, some make studios in utility closets or shipping containers -- wherever they can find a spot.
The students said they want more classes -- in mukluks and masks, fur slippers and salves. Artists had epiphanies. McIntyre said he might start selling small masks. Organizers made notes for next time. "Provide Reach dental floss for skin sewing because it doesn't break like other brands." "Make sure there's a first aid kit for nicks and cuts." "Play background music." "Set out food to draw in children, families, other artists."
"We would like to make an art incubator," Malvich said.