Multi-talented Bignell's passion is art

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A little gray at the temples and a few laugh lines hint that the tall, powerful man might be a little older than first guessed at.

Moses Bignell, 52, also strikes one immediately as a man who earned that touch

of gray honestly, through rough, hard work.

Bignell, the trapper, collector, actor, designer, mechanic, band councillor and community activist is a busy man indeed, but his real passion is art.

His works have a realist style, most often focusing on wildlife scenes or notable Native people. The earthy tones and expansive open skies he paints draw you into his world, the muskeg lands of the Swampy Cree people.

"I used to spend a lot of time in the bush with my dad, and that scenery, and what those things meant to us, that's what I paint."

Bignell, who lives in Opaskwayak Cree Nation reserve at The Pas, Manitoba, has sold his work all over the world. Collectors in Canada, Germany, Ireland, the United States, Scotland and Japan own Moses Bignell originals.

This landslide of export started about 15 years ago when tourists from Hamburg, Germany purchased some of Bignell's work. Word of mouth did the rest.

Europeans represent a valuable market for Native artisans and European collectors will not hesitate to pay a fair price, Bignell says.

"As an example, a lot of Europeans are interested in beadwork, too; to them it's art, really priceless."

Bignell mainly uses two mediums: oil paints on stretched animal hides or acrylics on canvas. Regardless of the medium, an always present theme in his work is the "energy of movement." Whether the subject is moose, goose, mouse or man, some sort of movement is depicted. A lot like Bignell himself.

Those themes of motion manifest themselves in another of Bignell's artist outlets - traditional dancing at powwows. Hand-in-hand with that is his skill as a master drum-maker.

"With 16 years as a dancer, I know what I like to hear in a drum. The hide I use

is 100-per-cent rawhide, no greases on it, no treatments, no chemicals. That makes a tight deep sound "that stays that way for a long, long time."

Bignell's distinctive octagon-shaped drum can be found throughout Manitoba. One special example resides at the Manitoba Indian Cultural Centre.

But Bignell's endeavours don't stop there.

He has appeared in a National Film Board picture entitled Cold Journey, and he, with his brothers Oliver and Joe, produced a documentary video depicting a moose hunt. His dream, along with his wife, Mabel Elizabeth, is to some day make movies about traditional lifestyle topics from the Native perspective.