26 Facts About Carl Beam

Carl Beam, born Carl Edward Migwans, was an Indigenous Canadian multi-media artist whose acclaimed career confronted Canada's colonial legacy through innovate means of creativity.

Carl Beam's work engaged with the contemporary issues and experiences of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island.

Carl Beam worked in various photographic mediums, mixed media, oil, acrylic, spontaneously scripted text on canvas, works on paper, Plexiglas, stone, cement, wood, handmade ceramic pottery, and found objects, in addition to etching, lithography, and screen process.

Carl Beam was born Carl Edward Migwans on May 24,1943, in M'Chigeeng First Nation, to father Edward Cooper and mother Barbara Migwans.

Carl Beam's mother was the daughter of Dominic Migwans, Ojibwe West Bay Chief.

Carl Beam served in the 77th Armor Regiment during World War II; he died as a prisoner-of-war in 1945 Bad Soden, Germany.

Carl Beam recounted to his daughter, artist Anong Migwans Beam, that he was mainly raised by his grandparents.

Carl Beam was sent to Garnier Residential School, in Spanish, Ontario, from the age of ten until eighteen.

Carl Beam married Ann Elena Weatherby, and they had a daughter Anong.

Carl Beam died on July 30,2005, in his home on M'chigeeng Reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario from complications due to diabetes.

Carl Beam sent him to Garnier High School in Spanish, Ontario, a residential school run by the Jesuits.

Carl Beam went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria in 1974, and entered into post-graduate studies at the University of Alberta,.

Carl Beam minored in ceramic pottery at the Kootenay School of Art.

Carl Beam abandoned pottery as an art form but only temporarily.

Years later in 1980 while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Carl Beam again became interested in handmade pottery via his exposure to Santa Clara pottery and Mimbres bowls that were made by the Anasazi who lived in the area centuries before.

Carl Beam continued to work on and off in pottery, creating bowls, snake pots and other handmade creations almost always decorated with his designs and images.

Carl Beam utilized a heat transfer technique learned from fellow artist Ann Beam, with his work on paper and Plexiglas.

Carl Beam began working with photo emulsion and mixed media on paper and large-scale canvas works.

Carl Beam was asking $60,000 when selling the piece, but the National Gallery's negotiations resulted in the purchase price ending up at $16,000.

Carl Beam found in this event, a source for a discussion on the nature of culture, as well as revisions and versions of history.

Carl Beam created at this time a body of work entitled The Columbus Project.

Carl Beam entered the new millennium with the body of work entitled The Whale of Our Being, in this work, "Carl Beam examines the calamitous moral fallout from what he perceives as a profound spiritual absence in contemporary society, symbolized by a great whale of primordial proportions".

Murray wrote of the way Carl Beam's imagery had become vast and all-inclusive:.

Carl Beam had completed Plexiglas works, and 22"x 30" paper works for Crossroads and was in the middle of a suite of etchings at the time of his death.

Carl Beam was the first artist of Indigenous ancestry to have his work purchased by the National Gallery of Canada as contemporary art, thus opening the door for a generation of Indigenous artists to enter.

Carl Beam brought an innovative approach to all the media he worked in.