Michael Bedoian

Michael studied Environmental Design at Indiana University and moved to North Carolina in 1986. He worked as a Designer in Raleigh but transitioned into a position as an Architectural Delineator/ Illustrator. He moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina in 1989 and worked with a Business Entrepreneur creating models, topography maps, and illustrations. He later worked as an Apparel Designer and Senior Graphic Artist for a major sports manufacturer. He started painting homes in 2001, creating a business doing decorative finishes in high-end homes all over the country. He worked in a kayak factory in R&D, shaping and designing kayaks. After the passing of his father in February 2019, he decided to pursue painting full time. The first time Michael displayed his body of work for the public was in November of 2018 at the Plantation Wildlife Arts Festival, showing at the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition not too long after in 2019.

As a small boy living in the suburbs of Chicago, Michael’s Grandma, Aunt, and Mother would sit at the kitchen table teaching themselves oil painting. He has fond memories standing by them, mesmerized by the beauty they created with paint. Their paintings would come to fill the walls of their homes, paintings that Michael would admire throughout his life. When these woman eventually passed, they would leave their paints and brushes to Michael. To this day, he keeps them in his studio, in the same green vase his grandmother used, right next to his easel.

Later in his life, Michael and his wife would design and build a small home of rock and wood in the mountains of Western North Carolina on 7 acres of land for them and their two daughters. The property a-joined a protected watershed of 20 plus thousand acres. As such, the native fauna would often traverse across their property—one of those being the Black Bear. At first, Michael was frightened. Why? He had never had any encounters with black bears before to make him so fearful. Then he realized that the fear was borne from biased information that was repeated to him, information that was often sensationalized and always ended in blaming the innocent creature itself. Programming from the so called “experts”, he realized, only builds an invisible barrier which no one dares to cross. So Michael decided to go on a journey in a quest for the truth. What he discovered transformed his fear about bears into a new understanding of love, compassion and peaceful coexistence.

Michael says, “We often think if we lived during the time in the early 1800s, we would have treated the Native Americans differently and with kindness. And yet, here we are today, treating the indigenous tribe of the Black Bear the same as we did the indigenous people of the past. This realization is the way to healing our transgressions. My paintings are about peaceful coexistence. The Black Bear has been my teacher. My paintings are about them and the gratitude I feel when I am with them. This gratitude is expressed in my painting titles.” To this day, he, his wife, and his dog, coexist peacefully with all the local wildlife, including the Black Bear.