Thomasina Top Bear

Thomasina Top Bear is a self taught Santee Dakota & Oglala Lakota muralist, she has been a member of the international all detail crew Few & Far Women since 2015. She helped found City Mischief Murals, an all BIPOC art collective in the Twin Cities. Thomasina’s inspirations come from her Indigenous culture and graffiti background, she uses the influences to express her feelings on community, social justice, culture, feminism and togetherness.

“Unci Maka means Grandmother Earth in Lakota/Dakota language, I featured the Morning Star (most often referred to as a star quilt pattern). This symbol has significant meaning in my culture, it represents the connection between this world and the spirit worlds, it’s a connection to our ancestors.

The flowers in this design are the Sunflower & Echinacea (most commonly known as Black Susans) both are Indigenous to MN and have traditional medicinal purposes. The Sunflower specifically has deep meaning to the Lakota people, before we used the four direction colors the Sunflower was the symbol for prayer as they’re always praying (looking towards) to the Sun which gives us life.

I featured a Hummingbird, Monarch butterflies & Bumblebees as they are vital to keeping the Earth alive, every season they spread the seeds of plants & flowers. The Hummingbird (Thanagila in Lakota) is the lover of plants and the bird to the sun.

I used traditional Dakota/Lakota wording Unci Maka instead of using the word “mother earth” as a form of reclaiming culture and as a form of landback. Language & representation of the original Indigenous people of this land is very important as we have endured over a century of forced assimilation and erasure of our culture. We are still here and I do think it’s very important that our culture is shared. I especially believe that these teachings should be shared by Lakota & Dakota people.

— Thomasina Top Bear

Connect
@tomierae • fewandfarwomen.com/tomie