James Houston

Translating ice into glass

by Brooke Chilvers

Many of Houston’s works are windows onto the ageless interactions between Man and his piscatorial prey both above and below the ice. In Arctic Fisherman, the kneeling Inuit, cast in sterling silver, waits to thrust his three-prong kakivak or fishing spear into the engraved Arctic char approaching his ice hole. In Mother & Child, because Inuit culture distinguishes between men’s and women’s tools, she uses a “woman’s fish jig” to lure her dinner. Full Article