He carved out a future for himself and made beautiful art in the process. John Sabourin was born and raised in Fort Simpson before moving to Yellowknife after twenty-seven years. He’s been carving for three decades and has also done printmaking. Initially, he wanted to be a painter and he went off to university in VIctoria in hopes of pursuing his dream. When he came back to Yellowknife, he spent time with stone carvers and decided he wanted to do that, even though he was selling paintings to people all over.

Sabourin fell in love with the medium but it was hard to get tools and stone in Fort Simpson. He asked economic development for funding and they gave him $1000 to order tools and supplies. He worked in his basement and created carvings that eventually sold at a show in Santa Fe. Encouraged by receiving money for his carvings, he was inspired to keep carving.

His artistry first started when he was seven years old, drawing on paper with anything he could get his hands on. People encouraged him that his drawings were very good, even at a young age. Sabourin flourished because he was surrounded by creative people, like his dad who used to do leatherwork.

These days when he does carvings, Sabourin likes to focus on northern images like ravens, grizzly bears, foxes, and wolves. Some carvings combine different animals in one carving, and some carvings are more abstract or include the northern lights. When he first started, he used only a hammer and chisel, with no power tools, but now he uses angle grinders and other power tools in his process. He finds his work lonely and the work is challenging, six days a week.

Given his own experience of moving away for university, Sabourin has advice for students making similar choices. He knows that sometimes you have to deal with loneliness when you leave home, and going away to educate yourself, you might decide to come back to your home community afterwards, or sometimes you might not be able to because there isn’t enough work. In his case, there isn’t enough clientele to buy his carvings. The benefits of leaving one’s home community is getting to learn things your home community can’t provide and meeting other people from different cultures, he shares.

When it comes to obstacles, Sabourin went to some art galleries fifteen years ago with his portfolio to try to sell some of his work and found he was being rejected. He had a hard time with the experience. He had to learn how to present himself and his art so that galleries would buy into his work.

If he could share a message with his younger self it would be, “It's gonna be okay. It's all good. You just gotta work hard. You have to think about where you need to go, and you have to envision yourself maybe five or 10 years where you want to be. You have to listen to your own guts. Sometimes there can be outside forces telling you you're not good enough, or you'll never amount to anything. It's just some of the negative things that you have to not pay attention to.”

To balance his mental health, Sabourin exercises to help shut down his mind, like a meditation. He talks about his day with his wife over supper and spends time doing things with her on the weekend. Exercise is his main source of stress relief.

For inspiration, Sabourin got a job at the World Expo in 1992 and had the chance to tour Europe for four weeks and to see the Olympics in Barcelona. He was inspired by seeing Rome, Paris, Madrid, Vatican City, Venice, European architecture, and all the famous works of art. He would even sketch buildings and people walking by while he was travelling.  The experience was amazing and informed his art.

To encourage Indigenous youth, Sabourin says,

“There's going to be struggles, there's going to be disappointments, but you have to truly believe in your own self, in your own talents. That's going to push you through and take you farther than you need to go. It's going to be wonderful. You just have to work hard.”

He carved out a future for himself and made beautiful art in the process. At first he thought painting would be his destiny, but he gave up his paint brush for a chisel and found true happiness. It took time to learn how to present himself and his art to galleries, but he discovered how to tell the story of his creations and share it with the world.

Thank you to Alison Tedford for writing this article.