Charlotte Karetak was always creative and interested in art, but it was through the osmosis of living with her grandmother that inspired her to pursue the craft more fully.
“It was really nice to know that somebody was encouraging me and helping me with that, because I had a lot of ideas and thoughts that I wanted to put into physical form, but I couldn’t push myself to do it or didn’t have the inspiration,” said Karetak about her grandmother Rhoda Karetak. “Seeing how hard she would be working on things made me want to be the same way.”
A seamstress, beader and multi-disciplinary artist, her grandmother also taught Karetak that art was about the energy she was putting into it.
Karetak started off with pen and paper drawings and has progressed to digital art. She paints murals, some of which can be seen in local buildings, and she even designs tattoos.
For her, art is a way of communicating with herself and letting out emotions.
“I don’t always have the right words to express how I feel or express the things that I wish I could say,” she said. “I think most of my creativity comes from being stuck and blocked-in, not knowing how to express how I feel. So then I just put it into drawings and writing sometimes.”
She’s in school for office administration and would like to turn her work into a business, as well as teach aspiring artists how to draw.
“I’m hoping that I will someday have my own business,” said Karetak, adding that she has always wanted to preserve Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit principles and have them play a larger role in education in the North.
Find more of Karetak’s work on her Facebook page named Charlotte Karetak.
