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Lucy Meeko
Canadian, 1929 - 2004
Lucy Meeko was a talented multidisciplinary artist from Kuujjuaraapik (Great Whale River), QC. Born in 1929 near Kuujjuaraapik, Meeko did not begin her artistic pursuits until later in life. Meeko began sculpting when Solomonie, an elder from Akuluvik, moved to her camp in the 1950s. She would watch Solomonie carve all day, eventually asking for a piece of soapstone. Meeko described her first experience with sculpture: “I carved that first piece of stone as a learning piece at home, while my husband was at work. I really wanted to learn how to carve. When my husband was due to come home for his tea break, I would hide the carving, because I was embarrassed by it. As soon as he left, I would start carving again… I’m not sure how many days it took me to complete the carving, trying very hard to make it into the perfect likeness… of a seal.”
Working primarily as a sculptor throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Meeko began experimenting with printmaking in the early 1970s. Her husband Noah Meeko was also a talented artist, and in 1972, Meeko and her husband were chosen by the Kuujjuarapik Cooperative to attend a seven-week printmaking workshop in Puvirnituq. Meeko became a prolific contributor to the Arctic Quebec print collections of the 1970s, creating stylized collages often illustrating the spiritual relationship between humans and animals in the Arctic. In 1989, Meeko was invited to the McCord Museum of Canadian History in Montreal where she demonstrated caribou skin tailoring and sealskin bootmaking.
Meeko was known as an ambassador of her community and was featured in the 1993 Keeping Our Stories Alive: The Sculpture of Canada’s Inuit film produced by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. She also won first prize in the “Figurative Expression” category at the international snow sculpture competition in Rovaniemi, Finland with her husband. Meeko’s works have been shown across Canada, and most recently, she was featured in the ULAG exhibition, Unikkausivut, in 2019.
Working primarily as a sculptor throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Meeko began experimenting with printmaking in the early 1970s. Her husband Noah Meeko was also a talented artist, and in 1972, Meeko and her husband were chosen by the Kuujjuarapik Cooperative to attend a seven-week printmaking workshop in Puvirnituq. Meeko became a prolific contributor to the Arctic Quebec print collections of the 1970s, creating stylized collages often illustrating the spiritual relationship between humans and animals in the Arctic. In 1989, Meeko was invited to the McCord Museum of Canadian History in Montreal where she demonstrated caribou skin tailoring and sealskin bootmaking.
Meeko was known as an ambassador of her community and was featured in the 1993 Keeping Our Stories Alive: The Sculpture of Canada’s Inuit film produced by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. She also won first prize in the “Figurative Expression” category at the international snow sculpture competition in Rovaniemi, Finland with her husband. Meeko’s works have been shown across Canada, and most recently, she was featured in the ULAG exhibition, Unikkausivut, in 2019.