Iqaluit’s Tania Scott, also known as Tundra Moon, came to the North with her parents 40 years ago and spent her early years moving around different communities. Her family followed her father, who worked for the territorial government in Taloyoak, Cambridge Bay and Arviat before settling down for her teenage years in Iqaluit.
She pursued her interest in art from her youth, even when bureaucracy prevented her graduating class at Inuksuk High School from formally pursuing Art 30.
“We had an art teacher who was really great,” recalls Scott in her studio at 805A, which is open to the public on Saturdays. This teacher circumvented the constraints preventing the students who wanted to pursue art at the time, going above and beyond to offer evening classes with local Nunavut artists, such as Mathew Nuqingaq, Janet Armstrong and Maddie McNair, “who exposed us to all kinds of things... It really helped my interest.”
After graduating high school, Scott went to the University of Ottawa and then returned to Nunavut, where she went to work for the government, married and raised her family.
Living in Iqaluit as a stay-at-home mom also helped her develop her artwork in different mediums.
“My friends and I always beaded and sewed, and I took part in craft fairs.”
The horticulturalist
Scott also developed an interest in local horticulture growing up on the tundra.
“I’ve always been fascinated with the little tiny flowers... I have identified over 30 [tundra] plants,” says Scott, who is currently pursuing her degree in horticulture online at Guelph University in Ontario and taking a plant identification course.
She points to Arctic horticulture books by experts she once worked with as a summer student at the Government of Nunavut.
“I’m always finding plants on the tundra where I’m like, I’m mystified, I’ve got to go find this or that. I just say, ‘I’m going picking now,'... It was actually Eva Aariak [a former Nunavut premier] who was the first one to say, 'You should have these identified' because explaining them over and over was exhausting. So I had the business cards made up."
Scott includes cards with purchases of her work that detail the plant used in each item.
In addition to putting Arctic plants in much of her artistic pieces, she also features other found items such as lichens, rocks or bone in her art. For her plant magnets made from bottle caps, the idea was born out of a load of the original coke bottle caps from the factory in Iqaluit that came into her possession.
“I was like, I’ve got to figure out something to do with these. It’s a sweet part of featuring Iqaluit history like that.”
After having run through her original supply, Scott is always looking for more donations.
She got involved in resin work, which is now the majority of her art, after her husband initially got her supplies for it. Then four years ago, she opened her studio amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Montreal fashion show
Scott is a member of the Newfoundland and Labrador Craft Council, which was featured at the Northern Lights Festival twice over the past few years in Ottawa. From that experience, a colleague recommended Scott to Montreal Fashion Week in September, the theme of which this year is coastal experiences, titled “Engulfed/Englouti.”
“I decided to apply on a whim,” recalls Scott, “and I thought, ‘Well, I’ve always wanted to experiment with seaweed,’ so I went for it and they were pretty happy with what I brought to the table.”
She is one of two artists whose jewelry is being featured at the show.
“So I thought that was pretty fun... It’s quire impressive what everyone pulled off,” she says.
On the particular catwalk featuring her work at the Engulfed fashion show in Montreal in September, Scott will have her seaweed earrings, bracelets and buttons being worn, in addition to an “enormous fun piece I can’t describe because it’s that crazy. It’s huge, and I didn’t know what to do with it. They said, ‘Do something with it and send it down.’
“There were a lot of team meetings online,” says Scott, “but for the most part, I was pretty much free to do what I wanted. I just had a colour scheme to follow.”
The exhibit featuring her work will be in the Montreal Art Centre and Museum. From there, the exhibit will travel to the Newfoundland and Labrador Craft Council from April 5- May 2, 2025, as well as being featured in the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte, Ont., in 2027.
