This Kotzebue resident is recognized by the Northwest Arctic Borough Arts Program as one of elite Inupiaq artists of the region. His life-like etchings on baleen focus primarily on Arctic wildlife including bears, walrus, wolves and caribou.

Baleen is the name of the fibrous plates from within the mouth of the plankton-feeding bowhead whale, which is occasionally taken by area hunters. The hard material is prepared for artwork through a painstaking process of scraping and then rubbing with abrasive material. In etching, the brittle green surface is scratched with a very sharp, pointed tool and the white fibers beneath it are exposed. A single drawing may constitute thousands of these tiny, individual scratches.