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Josephina Kalleo I would like for someone to carry on what I've been doing. It would teach the children about what those days were like and they will always know. They should know their traditional way of life. Excerpt from artist statement in Labrador Biography Project compiled by Memorial University Art Gallery, 1989. Josephina Kalleo was born in Nain, Labrador, in 1920. After raising her five children, Kalleo began to draw while working for the Torngasok Cultural Centre in Nain, transcribing tapes of spoken Inuktitut, her first and only language. Using coloured felt- tipped markers, she created images from her childhood that depicted the traditional ways of her people. The illustrations were of activities such as hunting, fishing and craft work, and of communal holidays like Christmas. These drawings, along with Kalleo's explanations of them, were published in 1984 in a book titled Taipsumane, an Inuktitut word meaning "Them Days". It contains 45 illustrations accompanied by trilingual text: standard English, Moravian Inuktitut (using the English alphabet), and Inuit syllabics. Referred to as one of the best descriptions of traditional Labrador Inuit life, the book was used to teach social studies in the province. Kalleo's drawings are also highly regarded for their interesting use of colour, detail and composition.
The original 45 drawings toured throughout the province in the exhibition Taipsumane: Drawings by Josephina Kalleo, organized in 1984 by the Art Gallery of Memorial University Art Gallery (now the Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador). The gallery later acquired the 45 drawings for its Permanent Collection Kalleo passed away in 1993.
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