Lola E.A. Ferguson
American, 1963
Lola Smith Ferguson was born March 1, 1963, in Bethel, Alaska. She is the daughter of Peter Luke Smith and Mary P. Smith of Mekoryuk, Nunivak Island, Alaska. Lola observed that due to a dialect difference with the Siberian Yupik Eskimos, her people refer to themselves as Cupik.
When Lola was four, the family moved from Mekoryuk to Bethel. A couple of years later they moved to Anchorage. When she was 11, they returned to Mekoryuk where her father, Peter Smith was a renowned mask maker and wood carver. It was at this time that Lola watched in awe as her father made his famous wooden spirit masks.
Lola started making masks around 1986. Initially Lola tried working in wood, but gave that up and chose ivory instead. However, she eventually returned to wood, asking her father for advice. She also learned from another Mekoryuk carver, Harry O. Shavings. Although her father gave his mask designs to her, it wasn’t until he passed away that Lola started creating wooden masks from his designs.
Continuing the tradition into the 21st century, Lola makes three of her father’s designs: a loon, double walrus and a halibut. Made of driftwood, each of her masks is an original. When she gets a good tree stump, she often uses it for a loon mask, turning the tree’s root into the loon’s neck. After she paints a mask white she then paints in feathers or other appropriate body parts.
Lola makes her hoops by hand by bending them around her pattern. Each appendage is attached with sinew. She uses traditional methods of gathering the pigments for her paint; sometimes mixing seal’s blood with coal dust to produce a black pigment and mixing with iron oxide rock to produce a reddish pigment.
Lola said, “I try to keep my father’s spirit alive through trying to duplicate his wooden spirit masks.”
Courtesy Arctic Spirit Gallery
