Flathead artist, Merle Big Bow earns biz leader fellowship

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. “They don’t have the selling experience.”

It’s a situation that’s kept Big Bow in his day job, 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, an 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.

By Jodi Rave – Missoulian

Full Story: http://helenair.com/articles/2006/01/30/montana/a05013006_02.txt