Charlotte Overvold’s kitchen doubles as her studio. The table is strewn with fish scales, glues, pigments. The freezer is full of trout and whitefish skeletons from Great Slave Lake. The best feature though, is her burbling, bright-eyed, six-month-old daughter Océane Snow, who is waving happy fists in the air and refusing to go down for her nap.  

A copper ulu with caribou bone handle, snow goggles, a sealskin bow tie, an ornate Dene Doll and a beautifully detailed birchbark canoe are just a few of the stunning pieces in a new set of arts displays at the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly.

With paint brushes in hand and a pallet of vivid yellow and orange paint before them, students from the Mackenzie Mountain School in Norman Wells dabbled, dotted and swooshed their artistic contributions onto a 4x8 foot painting. The piece is one of two new murals that will eventually be displayed in their community.  

Wayne Keefe likes to let go of the steering wheel. He’s a ditch-jumper, an off-roader, a joy-rider, and yes – he’s crashed countless times. These are metaphors of course, for Keefe’s creative process. The artist has learned, over many decades of painting, the benefits of maintaining a loose grip and giving up control – an approach that is at odds with the regulation and specificity he needed for his career in electronic maintenance.

The reasons people make art are incredibly varied. Some create as a form of self-expression. For others, art-making is an intellectual pursuit – a study of technique, form or colour. Some create simply because they must – it is as essential to life as eating or sleeping. Mary Louise Drygeese is different.

The Yellowknife Airport is looking more like an art gallery after some recent enhancements. Authentic artwork, curated from communities across the territory by NWT Arts is highlighted in display cases in the main arrivals area, arrivals/departures concourse B and the departures area after security.

From the chilling, the creepy and the downright sinister – no one does genre flicks quite like Dead North Film Festival. The world’s only circumpolar genre film-MAKING festival is back and looking for submissions!

NWT art and culture infuses elements of everyday life across the north, so what better way to enhance a conference than to share some of that culture? At this year’s Opportunities North conference, NWT Arts took the lead on decorating for the finale.

Five highly-skilled artists representing each of the NWT’s regions had the opportunity to promote and sell their art work at the Calgary Art Market earlier this month.