The Making of Chris Sampson’s Knowledge Keeper Series

Nunatsiavummiuk artist Chris P. Sampson furthers his Knowledge Keeper series with a diptych that considers the roles geography and prior experience play in skills like printmaking and berry picking and the Elders and other knowledge keepers who carry information for the next generation.
This project was inspired by work I was doing on a collage photo project using the prints of Inuit artists from Patrick Furneaux’s Arts of the Eskimo: Prints (1974) as well as works from German Renaissance printmaker Albrecht Dürer and German expressionist printmaker Käthe Kollwitz. Through the course of the work I began thinking about how my ancestral home, Nunatsiavut in Labrador, has been excluded from many things, including the historical arts funding that made early Inuit printmaking activities possible. I have always looked at Inuit printmaking with reverence, and the more I looked at the prints in Furneaux’s book, the more I knew I had to make something with these early Inuit works. 

My idea evolved into Knowledge Keeper, a way to tell my own story, of someone of Inuit-settler descent, through printmaking. I created a suite of three digital prints where I inserted myself into prints from Davidialuk Alasua Amittu, Eleeshushe Parr and Kiakshuk. My trio—respectively titled The Welcome, The Gift and Knowledge Keeper—show me arriving in an Inuit community, being given an Inuit Survival Guide and getting to learn from Inuit knowledge keepers. 

Chris P. Sampson The Gift (2023) Digitally alteration of Woman with Water Pail (1965), drawn by Eleeshushe Parr and printed by Eegyvudluk Pootoogook

For the next chapter in this series, I wanted to create something of my own making while continuing with my knowledge-keeper theme. During my project development, I thought about berry picking as an example of being out on the land and learning from my parents and grandparents and knew immediately I wanted to make a print based on these memories.

I have created a diptych, one print with my mother berry picking in the foreground and a second of her favourite berry-picking container, using a trace-monotype print technique with embroidered beads. I have only briefly explored monotype printmaking, an accessible way of printing at home that entails inking up your palette with a brayer, prepping the paper and any photographs or imagery being used and then tracing them. I wanted to blur the line between photo, print and drawing, which you can do with trace monotypes by using different tools and pressure to vary the lines.

The testing and printing process for September I and II

I believe the drawn nature and the soft lines of trace monotypes enhance the story of memory, family and intergenerational knowledge. I chose a Kozuke paper for this project, an affordable Japanese paper made from a mulberry tree. It is delicate in appearance but very strong, making embroidering the glass beads precise and straightforward.

For the composition of the first part of the diptych, I took inspiration from Battlefield, a 1907 print by Käthe Kollwitz, which shows a woman searching for a loved one. I visualized myself as a child, watching my mother lean forward and pick berries. My mother generously agreed to pose for a reference photo, which served as my figure. 

I always enjoy testing when beginning a project, and it serves many purposes: it helps to define the tools I will use and in what manner I render the imagery. I decided to focus on the figure in this testing, with an imagined composition and a simple sketch to start. I used my fingers and both ends of a pencil as my sole mark-making tools for these prints. I created almost a dozen of these figure tests, and it was only after I finished printing that I realized they mean far more to me than mere tests. They have become their own suite of prints and a treasured part of this series. 

Checking on the progress of September III mid-printing

After I made the first print, I realized the figure was far too dark. I fixed that in the second print, but I still preferred the foreground of the first. Since I wasn’t interested in creating a perfect third print and knew I could merge them digitally, I moved on. I went far looser with my mark-making with my third print to see how that felt. This adjustment directly responds to the transient nature of childhood memory as well as the degradation of generational knowledge traditions since the onset of colonization.

Chris P. Sampson September III (2024)

For the second print, the portrait of my mother’s favourite berry-picking container, I photographed the cherished item against a blanket as a reference image, paying close attention to the perspective I wanted for the print. I imagined a wide, berry-filled landscape with my mother's container nestled into the ground-hugging berry bushes. 

The berry-picking container reference photo is prepared for printing

I made an initial test print and then adjusted the scale, horizon and mark-making tools, using a rubber eraser to create a broader, generally softer line. I adjusted the print dimensions to match my cinematic memories and dreamed of a warm Labrador September sun while I made a couple of prints. 

Test print for My Favourite I and II

Once the prints were dried, which took a day or two, it was time to embroider the beads. I have incorporated beadwork in numerous art projects since arriving at NSCAD University, as it directly connects to my late grandmother and my artistic journey. 

I was first introduced to beading as a child by my grandmother, who taught me on a broken picture frame turned homemade loom. My grandmother died in 2011, but she gifted me a bead loom months before. It remained in its box until the pandemic, when I purchased some supplies and began to make my first pieces. I immediately remembered the sensation of the beads on my fingers and my grandmother’s soft guidance. I had many conversations with her while I explored beading again and with others as I made little pieces for them. Beading deepened my connection with my grandmother and my family and provided a creative spark that led me to apply to art school.

Sampson attaches beads to the prints

The red beads I selected for this project represent partridge berries we picked in the fall. My family had numerous traditional spots, and my mother and father had their favourites. Some still exist, others have been lost to development. I chose a deep red that matches the colour of a berry that has seen frost and is ready to be picked. I may use a pochoir or stencil technique to add colour to the remaining prints in the future. Pochoir can be a very easy way to add colour to a mono or an editioned print, and when using acrylic paint, for example, you can also add texture. I will revisit this once I live a little more with these prints. 

Chris P. Sampson September I (Left) and September II (Right) (2024)

Monoprints like these can be a very good way to iterate a concept or image without the necessity of a printing press. Upon completing these prints, I consider them a study or draft, rather than a finished work. Moving forward, I will continue to work on this series in additional print mediums. I imagine it as a lithograph with more complex mark-making than a trace monotype affords, in addition to the pleasure of drawing on a stone. 

An important lesson from my first two years at NSCAD is to continue exploring concepts and themes over multiple projects and, now, several disciplines over time. I have frequently found that the first iteration of a project is not the strongest. For that reason, I look forward to spending time in the print shop and discovering what my Knowledge Keeper series will teach me next. 

Chris P. Sampson My Favourite I (Left) and My Favourite II (Right) (2024)