In a town that gave birth to Jazz, Charles Gillam, Sr. has found inspiration in New Orleans’ musical legends. He is a self-taught folk artist. Born in the mid-forties, he spent the early part of his life in central Louisiana. When he was five his family moved to New Orleans, where he and several of his seven brothers and sisters joined the Young Gospel Travelers, singing at the Light of Jesus Spiritual Church in the lower 9th Ward. Although he grew up in poverty, his father managed to keep the family together and in school. At that time Charles yearned to become rich and famous so he could lift his family out of their humble conditions.

By the time he was ten, Charles was out shining shoes in the French Quarter, where he happened to walk upon the artists painting in Jackson Square. His interest in art was in born. He was fascinated by the artists’ ability to spend the whole day painting. Eventually ge got up the courage to ask them for any paints and brushes they could spare, whereupon he would immediately run home and create his own artworks, often painting until he was exhausted. His early works were memory painting of his childhood in rural Louisiana.

His favorite and strongest inspiration was well know folk artist Willie White who used to draw and paint with markers on his front porch while Charles, watched in admiration.

At the age of 18, Charles enlisted in the army and was shipped off to the war in Vietnam. Charles’ enstranged father fell ill. He returned to the states to reconcile with his father who died shortly after.

Later, he tried his hand at carving using cypress boughs he pulled from the banks of the Mississippi River. I was then that his art career began to take off!
Now, Charles Gillam lives along the levee of the Mississippi River in Algiers, and from its banks he has been gathering his latest artistic medium: driftwood. From acrylics to driftwood, Charles has learned to work in virtually every medium available, (“I like to create somethin’ outa nothin’”) but driftwood is his present fascination. “I call it my spirit wood; it’s like spirits come out and say ‘carve me like this.’ I have no idea how it will turn out.”

He has been featured in New Orleans Times-Picayune "Slice of Life” August 1998, N.O. Data Magazine September 4, 1999, Essence magazine October 1999, Raw Vision Magazine Spring 2000, New Orleans Magazine February 2001. He is also in a film documentary “Life and Death at Barristers.” He is also a donor of WYES-TV and the Louisiana S.P.C.A. Howlin’ Success. His work can be seen in the houses of many collectors across the country, in the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen in the French Quarter and in all of the House of Blues across the country.