Nicole Little
Artist and Creative Problem solver, based in Toronto
Other People’s Deities – Portraits of Lost, Obscure, Living and Dead Gods.
Mixed Media. March 2020 – Ongoing
Other People’s Deities is an ongoing series of portraits and sculptures.
This is a depiction of Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea and sea life.
In her legend, she finds herself at sea. In some versions, her father throws her out of their canoe. In others, she is alone and falls.
She clings to the canoe but her fingers freeze. They fall off and become the seals, walruses, and whales. She sinks to the bottom of the sea and remains there, a goddess of the underworld and a goddess of sea life.
Here, Sedna wears the facial tattoos which are still worn by some Innuit women today. Sedna’s body tattoo was inspired by Arreak Sakiasee’s beautiful print. The model in this image is a girl in a photograph titled ‘Inuit Woman with a Braid’, Alaska, 1904.