Carl Ray was born on the Sandy Lake Reserve (known as the birthplace of the Woodland School of Art). He was one of the generations of children removed from their homes and forced into residential schools (like Ahmoo Angeconeb above). He left school at fifteen after his father died. Ray tried to make a living hunting and trapping but those traditional skills had not been taught in residential school and he struggled. At 6'4" tall Ray was known as Tall Straight Poplar. Although Ray had shown artistic promise he was discouraged by his elders from breaking the taboo of painting the secret beliefs and stories of his people, many of which he heard from his grandfather, a prominent medicine man. He left the reserve and worked in the Red Lake gold mines where he wore himself out from hard living and contracted tuberculosis, returning to Sandy Lake in 1966. Once Norval Morrisseau achieved artistic success by breaking the taboos, Ray felt he could begin painting. Apprenticing under Morrisseau, Ray developed his own style, notable for its x-ray manner of depicting internal energies and organs. He went on to become one of the founding members of the Indigenous Group Of Seven (spearheaded by Daphne Odjig in 1973). Ray was stabbed to death in a fight in Sioux Lookout in 1978.