Midway through preparing for a trip to Princeton, N.J., mask maker Othniel "Art" Oomittuk answered the door at his small home studio wearing a head lamp and dust mask, his long dark hair pulled into a bun.  In short time the ritual would repeat itself with more knocks at the door until his small, stark home was nearly full with visitors: a reporter, a visiting teacher from Scotland, a biology teacher from Oregon who is new to the school at Point Hope, and a neighbor and fellow artist popping in to return borrowed movies.

Oomittuk was getting ready to travel to Princeton University, where he would be one of nearly two dozen Alaska artists on hand to help launch two exhibits featuring works from the arctic. Tools and raw materials spanned the living room floor, while finished pieces and works in progress, like hunting spears, snow goggles, a carved polar bear and seal, and ivory rings lined a narrow wall shelf. Oomittuk offered hot tea as his guests settled in.

“Gifts from the Ancestors: Ancient Ivories of Bering Strait” runs through Jan. 10, 2010 and “Dry Ice: Alaska Native Artists and the Landscape” runs through Nov. 21, 2009 at the Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton, N.J. More information about both exhibits is available at the museum's Web site.

Angus Grant, a teacher of art and design in Scotland who was in Point Hope for an educational exchange program, shares Oomittuk's passion for carving. The former jeweler turned school teacher is himself a bone carver, although materials like those used by Oomittuk -- whale bone, baleen, ivory -- aren't available to him. Instead, Grant simulates those materials with molded acrylic. He studied ivory carving in India and has had a chance to view bone carving in New Zealand, yet for him Oomittuk's work, as well as the work of other Alaskan artists, stands out.

"To compare it to the ivory carving that has gone on and can't go on in India anymore, and to be able to see contemporary ivory carving made to such a wonderful standard, is really something very special to me," Grant said.

Oomittuk's skill as an artist, passion for his culture and willingness to share both openly are the reasons he was selected to participate in Princeton's exhibition, said Angela Demma, curator with the Alaska Native Arts Foundation. ANF collaborated on the event alongside the Arts Council of Princeton and the Princeton University Art Museum.