Jan 29, 2006 - 02:00:26 CST
RONAN, Mont. - Merle Big Bow has been selling his artwork the only sure way he's known - by knocking on doors and showing completed work to employees in the local tribal building.These kind of sales typically work when selling lower-priced items, such as dream catchers or miniature drums. But it's a little more difficult trying to sell a $1,500 painted rawhide drum on a doorstep.
"That's a lot of artists' downfall," said Big Bow, a Chippewa Cree cultural artist who lives on the Flathead Reservation in western Montana. "They don't have the selling experience."
It's a situation that's kept Big Bow employed full time as either a police officer and most recently as a building maintenance repair man. But the artist made a decision two years ago to quit his job and spend more time carving chief staffs, painting buckskin and stretching rawhide over bows.
The First Peoples Fund, a traditional Indian art advocacy organization in Rapid City, S.D., recently recognized Big Bow's commitment to art by choosing the artist as one of four business leader art fellows for 2006.
The fund takes a two-pronged approach in awarding Indian artist fellowships. First, a national "community spirit" fellowship is given to artists from the northwest to the southeast, from the east to the southern Plains.
But the organization specifically targets artists from a northern tier of states, mostly the northern Plains, for its business leader fellowships.
"It's designed for artists like Merle, who have displayed a commitment to art and are actually earning a living and living the life of an artist," said Jhon Goes in Center, the fund's fellowship program manager. "Of course, you know artists, most of them are starving. He's one of the perfect models for this program."
The Chippewa Cree isn't exactly starving, as he likes to joke that his mother-in-law sews "chief-size" ribbon shirts for him. As for being a model, Big Bow represents artists "who have been doing cultural work all their lives but have perfected it to an art form," Goes in Center said.
Big Bow has been developing his art form since kindergarten, when he started drawing dinosaurs for classmates. Today, he's more likely to be found mixing a palette of fresh paints on the kitchen counter or shaving wood inside his garage.
He credits his aunt for buying him his first paint while in high school and for steadily encouraging him to pursue art full time.
Nico Strange Owl, a First Peoples Fund board member, said the organization supports a lot of community-based artists who tend to be more culturally successful rather than commercially successful.
"Indian art is sort of the last thing on people's lists," Strange Owl said. "Just to see the artists get that far on their own is really heartening."
Roger Broer, a 2005 business fellow, has been using his fellowship experience to create a studio workshop in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The studio will allow the Lakota painter to reach out to emerging artists while maintaining contact with customers. "You always have to get out and tell your story," he said. "It doesn't matter how well you tell your story, you just have to keep telling it."
Big Bow has only begun to tell his story even though he's been a working artist for more than 10 years. One of the first things he did when he quit his full-time job was enter a nationally juried art show. It led him last August to the Santa Fe Indian Market, an event drawing 1,200 artists and 100,000 art spectators.
Big Bow and his manager-wife, Nicole, went to the market not knowing what to expect. But they left thrilled after he won second- and third-place awards in the diverse arts, musical instrument category.
Winners from the show tend to set the world standard for Indian art. "I wanted to get home and get back to work while I was standing down there," Big Bow said.
As part of his First Peoples Fund fellowship, he plans to create a Web site to sell his work. He said, "I'd like some recognition in the real world, rather than being a door-to-door salesman."
(Reach reporter Jodi Rave at 406-523-5299 or jodi.rave@;lee.net.)
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