Summer Landscape

Description

A soft-spoken woman, Kingmeata’s work appeared in almost every Cape Dorset annual collection from 1970 until her death in 1989. She had a reputation for her delicately coloured acrylic paintings. Much of her imagery was traditional and land oriented although her manner of drawing was distinctively personal Born around 1915 in a small camp called Itinik near Lake Harbor, Kingmeata related the following vivid memories of her childhood ” I remember a lot about growing up. It used to be a lot of fun growing up at that time because we didn’t have many problems – like people do today. When I was growing up, we used caribou skin for parka’s and for clothes. They were very warm clothes. We used to play outside – even it there would be a blizzard. I didn’t learn to make a caribou skin parka, because my mother died when I was young. My sister was adopted when my mother died – to another family. I was growing up moving from one family to another after my mother died. Kingmeata was married as a very young woman to Elijah. He died at a relatively early age, leaving Kingmeata, still a young woman, to raise their small children. ” I was married quite young – in Igalalik. My husband was Elijah. When he died, my youngest daughter was still on my back [ie-still being carried in Kingmeata’s amoutik]. Elijah died down south. He had tuberculosis. I was living in Cape Dorset then. We had five children – none of them adopted”.