> INTRODUCTION TO JACK BUTLER'S DRAWINGS In place of the common rectangular picture plane, Jack Butler employs irregular formats inspired by the head bones of a trout for his “Art and Cold Cash” drawings. These organic shapes replicate the trout bones that were formerly used as play markers in a traditional Inuit Story Bones game. In this game, the shapes of the bones suggested familiar objects from daily life, as well as mythic characters. Butler makes present-day use of the bone shapes to animate his daily experience in Baker Lake: portraits of colleagues and friends, ice and tundra landscape details, skidoos and Honda ATV’s. He encourages interactive readings linking one shape to the next. Viewers’ imaginations are prompted to imagine pictorial narratives invented from cut paper “bones”.