Although each of these artists has received artistic acclaim individually, Listening with the Heart brings together for the first time the visually stunning and resonant work of Frank Big Bear, George Morrison, and Norval Morrisseau. These three contemporary artists share a common heritage as members of Ojibwe Woodland communities. More importantly, they have a mutual approach to their work. This approach, a "listening with the heart," is an orientation towards life itself which emphasizes a reality where the human, natural, and spiritual world are not separate, distinct categories. Listening with the Heart is guest curated by Todd Bockley, a Minneapolis artist and independent curator, and it is presented by the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum from September 9 through December 31, 2000.

From Morrisseau's dramatic interior visions and Big Bear's world of dreams, to Morrison's signature meditative horizons, their work represents a rich continuum of human experience, fueled by the artists' intuitive encounters and creative responses to their existence, which includes the natural world and beyond. The work of these artists assumes that we are not just passive observers in the world, but active participants in an evolving creation that is revealing itself constantly through nature, people, dreams, and visions. As Morrison wrote, "You have to seek the world beyond us. It's like reading words too, that are coming out of nowhere."

Frank Big Bear tells that when he was growing up his family would sit around the breakfast table and share their dreams of the previous night. Dreams were seen as events of experience, as real as rainstorms or toothaches. In the monumental Caterpillar Man, which was inspired by a dream, the artist is seen in the bottom panel dwarfed by his vision, apprehensively listening. In the drawing White Earth, the place of Big Bear's birth, the past, present, and future all dissolve together into a single moment, as if the earth itself is dreaming all it had seen and experienced.

Big Bear was born in 1953 on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. He grew up on the reservation and moved to Minneapolis in his early teens. Though largely self-taught, Big Bear also studied with George Morrison at the University of Minnesota. He has been a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Bush Foundation, and Minnesota State Arts Board. He has shown throughout the nation including, in 1994, a one-person show at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico and, in 1997, a one-person show at the Jacobson Foundation, Norman, Oklahoma. In 1998 he completed a library mural for the New York City Percent for Art Program. Big Bear lives and works in Minneapolis.

George Morrison's work reveals his openness. Looking and listening he stands before the horizon seeking to penetrate its presence. This simplest of devices, the line formed where sky meets earth, repeated again and again becomes a mantra. Morrison stated, "The horizon line became more of an obsession around 1967, and I have been using it ever since, as a focal point, to identify the landscape."

Morrison (1919-2000) was born in Grand Marais, Minnesota. An enrolled member of Grand Portage Reservation, he attended Grand Marais High School and went on to the Minneapolis School of Art, now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. After spending many years on the East Coast and in Europe, in 1972 he returned to the Twin Cities to teach at the University of Minnesota. Completing his journey, in 1983 he returned to the area of his childhood, the North Shore, where he lived until his death on April 17, 2000. One of MinnesotaÕs most revered artists, Morrison received numerous awards and honors including an honorary M.F.A. degree in 1969 from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Also in 1969 he was invited to visit Cuba on a cultural exchange program for the exhibition El Autentico Pueblo. He received the first Master Artist Award in 1999 from the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, IN.

In The Storyteller, the Artist and His Grandfather, Norval Morrisseau pays homage to the man who had the greatest influence on his early life, his maternal grandfather. In the painting the artist, as young boy, sits at his grandfather's feet, listening. But it is not a passive reception of information. The artist not only listens to what is said, he opens himself completely to the presence of his mentor. The strength of Morrisseau's art lies in its power to evoke in us the reality of his vision. Morrisseau was born in 1931 in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and is a self-taught artist. A member of the Ojibwe Nation, he grew up in Thunder Bay, and continues to travel, teach, and exhibit throughout Canada. He has also had major exhibitions in France, Germany, and Norway. Morrisseau is a member of the Order of Canada and the Royal Canadian Academy of Art, and holds the Eagle Feather, the highest honor awarded by the Canadian Assembly of First Nations. In 1989 he was the only Canadian artist invited by the French government to participate in an exhibition to celebrate the Bicentennial of the French Revolution.

Support for Listening with the Heart is provided by The American Express Minnesota Philanthropic Program. The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a Federal agency that fosters innovation, leadership and a lifetime of learning, supports the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum. Additional operating support is provided by the General Mills Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Colleagues of the Weisman Art Museum, and the University of Minnesota.