Katajjaq (2)

Tumivut (Inuit) girls performing
12" x 12", oil on luan, 2013

Today it is exactly thirty years since I made the top 10 that lead to the Top 100 project. I've compiled 75 top tens on average every year since, and just yesterday I finalized the Top 100 2012, a list constructed from 74 top tens. Today is the official start of the Top 100 2013 but the images I post are still going to be belonging to 2012 for a while. There's an exhibition scheduled for May 11 to show the 100 paintings (details will follow soon!), and I'll be working up to that date to make paintings for it. Today's painting I made yesterday, and I struggled with it. It seems that the more I teach, and the better I become with demonstrations, critiques and such, my own paintings suffer. Pictured above are two Tumivut Inuit girls performing the song The Competion at a song tournament. The song nearly made it in the list, as did many others in the genre but the only one in the Top 100 is simply named Katajjaq (the word for this style of throat singing) and is performed by anonymous singers. It is the same track that was in last year's top 100, and if you click in this link you can read what I wrote about that style of singing in January of 2012.