Last week on FEEDBACK FRIDAY, we had Anong Beam of Beam Paints. Anong says her business is the result of a multi-generational love of pigment, paint, color, and innovation. “I was raised by my artist parents, Carl Beam and Ann Beam, and was taught from a young age how to harvest hematite pigment in the LaCloche mountain range near our home in M’Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island.” Beam Paints draws on Anong’s early education in Indigenous pigment and expands it to encompass all paint traditions. She talked about the progression of her craft, her love of color, and more.
Watch the video recording below.
Shop all Beam Paints on our site here.
Follow Beam Paints on Instagram
Read this great article written by Anong on SNAP:
“Many of my earliest memories are encountering colour with my parents, both practicing artists, and learning to know them as forces, personas with emotions and powers all their own. At three years old, I remember standing on a black paved driveway with my mother standing adult-tall above me. We were both looking up into a canopy of spring green maple leaves, the sun gleaming through them. I asked, “What colour is that?” and she said, “Chartreuse.” I stood feeling full of the gleaming gold colour, smelling the spring green scent of evaporating rain from pavement and leaves. I wanted to know the colour and there, sitting at the base of the tree, I ate the sprouts of budding spring maple and knew the taste of green.”
FEEDBACK FRIDAY
If you are not familiar with FEEDBACK FRIDAY, every other week, we speak with dyers, artists, scientists and scholars about our favorite topic, natural dyeing and color. Curated by Amy DuFault, Botanical Colors’ Sustainability Director and presented by Botanical Colors’ Founder Kathy Hattori.