Clayton Samuel King: 100 Years of the Williams Treaties

Monday, November 6, 2023 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm EST (GMT -05:00)
Treaties week event poster with event details and photo of Clayton Samuel King

Clayton Samuel King: 100 Years of the Williams Treaties

Please join us November 6, 1pm - 3pm in EC5 1111. Clayton Samuel King, Potawatomi from Beausoleil First Nation, is an artist, educator, and orator. One focus of Clayton's work includes the Williams treaties, which effect his home community. In this presentation, Clayton will share his expertise and passion while discussing life before the treaties, 100 years of the Williams Treaties, and implications such as denied rights to hunting and fishing.

All are welcome to attend this in-person event! To attend, please register here.

About the Speaker

Award-winning Barrie Ontario-based multi-media Fine Artist and Historian Clayton Samuel King is entering his 17th consecutive year of creative practice where he has developed predominantly as an acrylic painter but has also worked with several mediums throughout his career. Clayton was born and raised in St. Catharines, Ontario. He graduated with a Fine Art Advanced Diploma from Fanshawe College in 2010. Mr. King is a member of the Beausoleil First Nation and is a proud Potawatomi Anishinabek artist.

The common themes in Mr. King's work are inspired by his Anishinaabek culture, heritage, and history. As a youth, Clayton became influenced by several woodland artists, and like those woodland artists of yesteryear and today, Clayton continues to carry on the tradition of Native storytelling through his writing and narrative paintings.

Mr. King has presented his artwork in eight solo exhibitions and forty-four selected group exhibitions since 2008. Clayton has had eleven major commissions and his creations have been acquired by many private and public collectors like The Archives of Ontario, Bell Canada, The Canadian Coast Guard, Canadian Forces Base Borden, and the Beausoleil First Nation to name a few. Throughout his career, Clayton has provided numerous artist talks, Native painting & craft instructional workshops, and Anishinaabek history, treaty, & genealogical presentations to several communities in Ontario and the Great Lakes Region.

Between being a father of two young boys, a husband, and a professional artist, Clayton has found time to volunteer on several boards and committees in the past and present, ranging from local to National levels. Mr. King has also been the recipient of nine awards and six grants and has seen his historical articles and papers published nine times in recent years.

On the eve of the hundredth anniversary of the Williams Treaties, Mr. King made it his goal to visit each of these communities that signed the Williams Treaties to share his historical knowledge and to showcase his art in his traveling gallery while these Nations celebrated their communities through, ceremony, song, dance, feasting and giveaways at their annual pow wows.

Clayton Samuel King has resided in Barrie, ON. with his family since 2011and this is where the bulk of his artwork and accomplishments have taken place throughout his illustrious career. In 2012 Mr. King became the owner and operator of White Bear Art, a business that concentrates on Fine Art and Indigenous Historical Research.