Today we’d like to introduce you to Chiara Beaumont
Hi Chiara, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Virginia, far away from my homelands of the coast of Texas, because my mother found better work opportunities there for her, being one of the first completely formally educated persons of my lineage. I grew up quiet and obedient, mostly introverted, with a rich internal life where I found joy and fulfillment in creativity, making my mother proud, and becoming good at whatever it was I set my mind to. My mother, Clara, was honest to us as children and always told us that because of the color of our skin and who we were as a people, our lives would be a bit harder, we would experience prejudice, we would have to work harder than others, and that (whether we liked it or not) all of the actions we took would be reflections of our People.
I was raised Karankawa, but another word we used to describe our Indigeneity to the lands we now call Texas was “Tejano”. In Virginia, this was a point of fetishization or ostracization, but it did not bother me much until I got to college.
During an orientation of the freshman body of the University I attended, I was startled and disturbed to be prompted with a question where the answer was horrifically bleak. A man on a stage prompted the student body to stand up if his statement resonated with them, statements like “You come from a single parent home” or “You Identify as white or Caucasian”. After each statement, many students stood up and with their standing always came noises, usually of folding chairs, feet shuffling, and of conversation. For a few minutes we practiced this exercise until the man on stage asked the student body “You are Native American, First Nations, or Indigenous”.
My life changed in this moment, when I realized that the auditorium fell to complete silence. No chatter. No chairs folding up. No shuffling feet. It was me, and three other students, in a body of around 900. We looked at each other, the students, and then at the man on stage who looked at me directly, nodded and said quietly “thank you.”
It was at this moment I knew that I would be dedicating the rest of my life to my people and revitalizing us, protecting us, serving us.
And so!
It was simple enough, every decision I’ve made up until that point runs through a filter of options that cannot get through unless it passes the checks. The checks I make sure I pass any decision through look like this:
1. Does this give myself peace, fulfillment, or joy? (Does this honor my ancestors, who fought for my peace, fufillment, and joy?)
2. Does this aid to the protection, revitalization, peace, or joy of my people?
3. Does this represent my people well?
4. Is this decision one that a good ancestor would make?
-and if whatever-it-is passes these 4 checks, then I do it as good as I can for as long as I can, mostly I’ve been focusing on the arts and education, and I have been so lucky that people are noticing and are interested in what I do.
Now, you can find me offering classes I’ve designed at my place of work, as my full-time job (the one that gives me benefits) that all touch on decolonial ideology and challenging the ways we as “Western Human beings” have been taught to look at things.
You can find me speaking at universities, conferences, panels, and offering workshops and classes all over the Central Texas Area (and further!)
You can find me displaying my art at grass root art collectives and working within my community to do what I decided I would do, more than a decade ago.
I am called an “Indigenous Educator” and “Indigenous Resistance Artist” now, which can really be boiled down to me offering a Karankawa perspective on everyday values, morals, and ideologies. This perspective has been seen as very valuable, being that (as is the case for most Indigenous cultures), the values, morals, and ideologies of my people have survived the test of time, for at least 10,000 years we have remained as determined and strong people.
I am honored to be able to share it with people and, at this point in time, want for nothing.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a smooth road, but it is not for anybody! No, not even the trees have an easy go at it, going through the harsh ice and snow of winter, the drought and heat of summer, the storms of spring, the decay of fall. Going through their own injuries and illnesses, their own aches and pains.
All living things go through pain and struggle, mostly revolving around birth, death, communication, community, and our own spirit. I too have gone through struggle on these things.
I have struggled with violence opposed upon me, by lovers, by friends, by strangers, by the state.
I have struggled with sickness and illness in my body, my joints and muscles, my organs, my flesh.
I have struggled with death revealed to me, by cherished loved ones passing on, or anticipating it.
I have struggled with life and her cyclical nature; it can be so so good and then it can be so so bad over and over.
Personally though, the struggle that hurts me the most is when I am hurt by the men in my life. Since a child I have always wondered what it is like to be loved by a man, a father, a friend, a brother. I do not know yet what healthy love looks like from a man and so I wander into shadowy places searching for it, sometimes in vain.
Though, as is with all personal struggle that hit the hardest, it is what I seek the most consistently. I do not complain too much about this hardship, because I have decided to take it on. Maybe one day though, I will lay that struggle to rest and just become a hermit or something, ha-ha!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am an artist through and through so my medium changes depending on what my life is like at that moment.
Right now, I’m focusing on collage! It’s what I’m known for (at the moment) and is what has given me the most audience.
I am proud of taking this practice and sharing it with the public. Having gone to art school I couldn’t help but notice how it was one of the least spoken about (and taken seriously, to be frank) mediums of creation. So I am proud of having people reach out to me to share how they didn’t really think collage was that serious of an artform until they saw my work, that’s awesome.
I am proud of taking a medium in its physical practice and turning it into something deeply intentional and cathartic from the very soft beginnings of ideation all the way to creation. Collage is just like the experience of an Indigenous Texan in my point of view. Taking many different things, spread across time and space, and pulling them back together to form cohesive, beautiful, healing pieces of art.
What sets me apart, I think, is that my work centers the Texas Indigenous experience, all of my supplies center Texas and her history, her people, her culture AND that I rely heavily on the use of text. Most of my pieces tell you exactly what they are about, leaving little room for incorrect interpretation of what my specific message is, but like most text, invites the viewer to provide their own commentary.
Most times, the commentary on my work is that it can be political, violent, angry, but necessary, healing, and cathartic. Other times it offends people and causes quite the stir! Usually from people who are racist!
What matters most to you?
My people. My people. My People! The Karankawa Tribe of Texas.
They matter the most to me because they are literally the reason I am here, doing what I do, thriving in the place I want to live, where I want to live and how I want to live.
It is my people who have given me life through the work my ancestors did.
It is my people who have given me this path through their constant support and elevation.
It is my people who have given me their protection through their prayers, the way they show up for me and each other.
It is my people who have given me my ability to find peace, as I watch them make plans for the future generations, uplift each other, and defend each other.
It is The Karankawa who have been here since the beginning of time who remind me that death is not real, just a veil for things that change shapes. If my ancestors could survive a genocide and show up in our work, our music, our art, our communities, our culture, our lifestyles, our foods, our everything…. then I am eternally tied and grateful for them.
My people is my mother, my sister, and my brother.
My people is myself, my art, my music, and my job.
My people is the way children are cherished and given soft places to grow.
What matters most to me is my people because, without exaggeration, they are everything.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://karankawas.com
- Instagram: @karankawachicharra
