Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

RAE EDZO (Nov 01/99) - Dene artist Archie Beaulieu has been a full-time artist for 25 years. But for Beaulieu, who lives in Rae, it goes back to when he was a child.

"I was just born a natural artist. It's hard for me to say when somebody asks me (when I started)," says the 47- year-old, who, as the eldest of the family, stayed with his parents when the others were sent to residential school. He went to school in Rae.

"That's where I always ... I don't know how to say ... I always see things that I always want to draw. And at the same time I pick up stories."

It was then that Beaulieu's grandmother knew what his gift was, and also when she told him stories.

"It took me a lot of years to get my name up there. I worked hard for that," says the artist, who has pieces in the collections of Queen Elizabeth II and the Vatican.

Beaulieu has long wanted to translate his two-dimension art into the three-dimensional world -- he is now attending the metalwork course in Rae-Edzo and thriving.

"When I was in Inuvik one time for the Great Northern Arts Festival I was so impressed with the way they had workshops ... for the first year that I was there it was just look-and-see. The second year I picked up a workshop with Bill Nasogaluak. I took a carving workshop. I learned about files and tools."

At the same time, Beaulieu encountered a group of metal workers and jewellers from Iqaluit. This was at a time when metalwork courses were prevalent in the Eastern Arctic, but not in the West.

"Ordinarily, to go into jewelry, you have to go to a two-year course in Iqaluit."

When Aurora College started the program in Rae-Edzo, he was there.

Beaulieu's paintings are reminiscent of modern carving, with inset images and stories being told. His vision lends itself well to the world of three-dimensional art. And his approach to the work is very similar to his approach to painting.

"I prepare myself. I do a lot of sketches with pencil. I find ideas take quite a while to do for printmaking. I'm the kind of artist that whenever I want to paint certain things ... If I want to do a painting of a loon all month this month, I do," says Beaulieu.

He adds that the subject matter of his work is also affected by the seasons.

"Most of all the painting I do is related to wildlife."

He also works from legends passed on from generation to generation.

Sometime in November, his latest print will be ready. The mother in the Northern Spiritual Beauty serigraph -- a silkscreen method of printing -- wonders which animal clan her child belongs to.

"To see if the child is wolf clan or loon clan ..."

Unlike other serigraphs of Beaulieu's, which might have five or six colours, this one has over 20.

In the jewelry program, he works on earrings, brooches, pendants and bracelets, with Dene themes just like his paintings.

Now it looks like the youngest of his six children, his nine-year-old daughter, might have the gift.

"I noticed when I first handed her a pencil when she was small, the way she was holding the pencil related to the way I hold it," says Beaulieu with gentle pride.

And the image of the rose he always draws with his signature? That's for his wife, Rose, the woman who is an integral part of his life and his art.