comprehensible narrative. Oonark is also well known as a textile artist, whose wool and felt wall-hangings reveal her as a master of color and form." Themes in her artwork Oonark's work includes visual puns and shape-shifting, descriptive works depicting clothing, tools and cultural objects of importance to the Utkuhihalingmiut as well as images based on storytelling, legends and shamanism. Visual Puns or Ambiguous images Mame Jackson, George Swinton and Jean Blodgett noted that Oonark's work reflects a high tolerance for ambiguity, a kind of double vision. For example, her work entitled "Two Fish Looking for Something to Eat" (1978), when viewed as a horizontal image, suggests two swimming fish-like creatures and depicts her version of the cannibal fish legend. When viewed vertically one figure resembles a standing woman whose face fills the amaut. Is she birthing or eating the small blue fish? The fish-figure wearing a man's parka seems to be kiss-touching rather than eating. Jessie Oonark, although familiar with oral traditions and legends, is never satisfied with a one-layered literal illustration. The horizontal print Two Fish Looking for Something to Eat depicts her version of the cannibal fish story but her double vision leaves room for ambiguity. The cannibal fish also appears in her print "Untitled (Yellow fish)" (1977). Jessie Oonark's verbal descriptions of her own work are often cryptic, Shamanism Oonark's father Aglaguaq and her grandfather were said to be shamans. Aglaquarq used his shamanic powers infrequently but Oonark vividly remembered his helping spirit— Uupitanaisuak. Aglaguaq had a daughter who is Oonark's stepsister, Kayuruq. When Janet Kigusiuk was still a baby, Anglican missionaries, Canon James and his Inuk assistant catechist Thomas Tapatai came to Oonark's hunting camp. She adopted the Anglican religion and they gave her a prayer book and a Bible. The arrival of Christian missionaries divided their small camp into two divisions—those who became Christian and those who held onto the old ways. Oonark did not participate in drum dancing nor did she follow the ways of shamanism. However she continued to depict the drum dance and aspects of shamanism in her artwork such as Horned Spirits (1970), Shaman (1970) and The People Within (1970). The colour stonecut and stencil print on laid Japanese paper printed by Thomas Sivuraq of a drawing by Jessie Oonark called "A Shaman's Helping Spirits" (1971), in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada depicts a horned shaman, with