Roy Weyiouanna

Roy Weyiouanna is an Inupiaq Eskimo born in 1958 and raised in Shishmaref, Alaska. Shishmaref is approximately 110 miles north of Nome, Alaska and lies on a spit of land along the Bering Sea where the people still participate in a traditional subsistence lifestyle.

Like many Inupiaq artists, Roy grew up in a large family of talented carvers. His parents Esau and Alene Weyiouanna were among Shishmaref’s most accomplished reindeer horn doll making teams. Roy taught himself to carve driftwood in grade school, ultimately moving on to walrus ivory and fossilized whalebone carvings. He is considered one of a creative new generation of whalebone carvers who began producing in the 1980s and now adapts some of the original Shishmaref whalebone forms into more contemporary, stylized pieces. Roy’s rib and vertebrae sculptures have a refined and beautiful polished quality.

Usually the shape and texture of the bone dictates what he will produce: “on the whale ribs I usually make a man, or a woman with a baby – whatever I see in that bone I just carve it out.”

Roy’s work is well recognized by art collectors, and has been featured in American Indian Art magazine.