photo by John Ratzloff

Frank Big Bear, 71, is an Anishinaabe artist born in Detroit Lakes, MN, he is a member of Minnesota Chippewa tribe enrolled in the White Earth reservation. Big Bear is known for his Prismacolor pencil drawings, acrylic paintings, and mixed-media collage. He was raised in Pine Point, MN and moved to Minneapolis when he was 14 years old. He moved to Duluth, MN in 2010 and returned to Minneapolis in 2019 where he still resides. He has six children, his oldest is his only son and he has five daughters.

Early Life

Art has always been part of Big Bear’s life, he remembers being at Helgren’s Truck Farm drawing cowboys and indians on egg cartons when he was just a tot, so little he had to stand on something to reach. Before grade school, his paternal grandparents would give him paper and pencils to draw with. They would look at his drawings, smile, and giggle. Big Bear’s dad was part of a clean up crew after a tornado and was gifted two bales of comic books by a store owner, each one filled with hundreds of comic books. He brought them home for Big Bear to have, and Big Bear loved them! He remembers drawing Sad Sack, a comic created by Sgt George Baker. Big Bear says when he first started drawing his focus on art would help him forget about the negativity surrounding him, art helped him work through his problems, feelings of loneliness and this would continue throughout his life. 

Big Bear did not have much access to art when he lived on the reservation. Before home computers, the internet, and no access to a library, his first memories of paintings came from Reader’s Digest when he was about 11 years old. Images of Alvin Albright’s “Poor Room” was featured in the magazine and it inspired Big Bear. “Poor Room” is oil on canvas, Albright had a bricklayer come to his studio to lay down a brick wall with a window in it and used that as his model. Grotesque image of how things decay overtime and the only human element is hand,

Another inspiration from that magazine was Joan Miró’s “The Farm.” Big Bear loved the abstract but recognizable rooster, as well as the different shapes Miro used to make his animals, he liked how orderly everything looked . For Big Bear, reading about these works in Reader’s Digest was eye opening . The combination of ideas, storytelling and hard work blew Big Bear away.

When he was 12 years old, Big Bear went to a science museum while he was on a field trip in the Twin Cities. Big Bear recalls a special exhibit of paintings at the museum where massive paintings on canvas were shown. Even though the pieces were all one color, he was amazed by how thick the paint was and the different textures each one had. A green painting with a texture like ice cream made Big Bear realize how beautiful art could be.

Education

Big Bear went to North High School where he met his art teacher, Mrs. Katharine Mattson, who was a major influence on his art.

"I had a lot of mentors, most all were men except for her,” Big Bear said. “She is the one that got me to study art history, artists, and steered me in the right direction. I always would have been an artist, but she made me a better one.”

Mrs. Mattson would let Big Bear take art books home to read and look at, talk to him about art and gave him paints so he could paint at home. Big Bear remembers Mrs. Mattson telling everyone not to waste paint, but telling him that he could waste all the paint he wants.  This is when Big Bear really started excelling in art, by studying artists and different genres like surrealism, data, and minimalism. He said it took a while to understand these genres, but he kept reading, it all started to click.

Big Bear met a lot of positive and supportive people while he attended North High school. His English teacher Shirely Maxwell was incredibly supportive of his art and his education. She gave Big Bear a lot of encouragement and bought art from him. She gave him an A+ on a paper he wrote. He also met Wally Kennedy who was the director of Urban Arts in Minneapolis, Kennedy became a friend and mentor to Big Bear and helped Big Bear get two scholarships. The first was to Macalester college in St. Paul and the second was to the University of Minnesota. 

 Big Bear found the preliminary courses at Macalester college frustrating, he wanted to get into Jerry Rudquist’s painting class but first had to take prerequisite drawing classes and ended up butting heads with a professor. Big Bear went on to enroll at the University of Minnesota to study under George Morrison, who was an artist he admired and looked up to. Morrison and his wife Hazel Belvo were very influential artists and the top art couple in Minnesota. They were supportive of Big Bear’s art and went to an art show of his at the time. Big Bear studied under Morrison for a year and dropped out of college for good.