About Us

Sue and Paul Ponchillia, along with their friend and colleague, Helen Lee, developed Anana Stonecarving, out of their love of the Arctic; the people, the land, the ice, the wildlife, the history, and its pure simplicity. The aim of Anana Stone Carving is to share that love through traditional Inuit stone carvings and through story telling. The tales stem from more than 20 years of trekking, paddling, and experiences with native people in hamlets strewn across the world above 66 degrees north latitude, ranging from the Alaskan Islands to the GreenlandNunavit Territories, and the Northwest Territories. The specifics of the stone carvings, the carving workshops, and lectures are presented in more detail in links below. The Ponchillias and Lee are university lecturers in the area of blindness and low vision studies at Western Michigan University, hold Doctorates,  have made more than 150 public presentations collectively and have exhibited their works on numerous occasions, including national and international showings. coast. The stone carvings are available to individual collectors or retailers and workshops are open to anyone who wants to learn the methods used by native carvers. The stories, told through multimedia lectures, are intended to be used as fund-raisers for community organizations. They are presentations of sometimes life-threatening and always entertaining adventures in Greenland, Ellesmere Island, the

Helen Lee is one of our carvers.  She has an undergraduate degree in fine arts and has worked with numerous media.  She is especially apt with human figures, but likes to work with spiritual themes, such as human/animal transition pieces.  Helen serves as anana's "artistic eye."  Her professional specialty is in the realm of low vision therapy, so she has an excellent feel for lighting, shadowing, contrast, and the visual presentation of the carvings.  Her combined knowledge of art and low vision also gives her an unusual expertise as a museum accessibility consultant.  Also, Helen is the mother of a pre-teen daughter and practices Tai Chei for fun.

Susan Ponchillia is the manager, provider of common sense, and Arctic expert for Anana.  She has traveled to the Arctic more than any of the Anana family and has worked hand-in-hand with native people of the region.  Sue has many native friends as a result of projects in which she has helped native people with visual impairments learn the skills of daily living, social action, and stone carving.  Along with Paul, she has kayaked all over the furthest reaches of the Arctic, including trips to the northern fjords of Ellesmere Island and Greenland. 

Paul is the most active Anana stone carver at present, primarily because he is retired from his "day" job.  His carvings are somewhat unique, in that they are done completely by touch, that is, he uses no vision.  An accident at age 30 left him totally blind.  Ironically, his interest in stone carving came after his vision loss and resulted from the first piece of Inuit art he touched.  He said, "The Sedna piece I picked up was so fantastic!  Its form was so perfect, its smooth surfaces so inviting, and its beauty so overwhelming, that I knew right then and there that I had to find a way to create it."  He attributes his success to Inuit stone carving's simplicity of form and texture and to touch's ability to "see" it exactly as if visually looking at it.  Paul has also published on the topic of blindness and brain plasticity, that is, the human brain's ability to substitute touch for vision following blindness.