Frank McEntire was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1946. When he was nine, his family moved to Houston where he can remember "drawing" and "poking around old things piled in heaps in the corners of antique shops." He also took art classes at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. After high school McEntire attended Lon Morris College, Jacksonville, Texas, and graduated with an associate's degree with an emphasis in theater arts. His next move was to the University of Texas and then to Brigham Young University, where he finished his Master's Degree in 1976.

McEntire has a broad range of experiences in the arts. He has been coordinator and chair of various arts committees and projects, and has extensive experience as a scene painter and set designer, and has acted in several major and minor productions. His experiences with theater have perhaps carried over into his art in his frequent choice to involve the viewers of his art in more than just visual experiences, to have them be active participants in his 3-D sculptures and installations.

Certainly McEntire's interests in and involvement with various cultures and religions has had a very profound impact on his work as an artist. He is particularly interested in religious objects and instruments such as divining rods and seer stones. Time spent living with Northwest Indian tribes and as a Hare Krishna, introduced McEntire to the powerful cedar and root-knarled staffs used by the Northwest Indian shamen to divine and to whisper important knowledge, and to the Hare Krishna saffron-wrapped staffs that designate power and religious authority to those who carry them.

A Christian and Mormon background taught him about the Old Testament prophets Moses and Aaron, who have mystical staffs--divining rods and powers against the staffs of the Egyptian magicians. And about how early Book of Mormon prophets made use of both seer stones and also divining rods. Each of these groups' beliefs in the power of religious objects centers on the objects' ability to provide divine sight.

This interest in divine ways of seeing has led McEntire to create mythic assemblages of odds and ends that gain meaning through ties to our deepest religious enactments and symbols. His art works ask us to examine our beliefs and understanding, not as detectors of error, but rather as participants in exploration and growth.

Biography courtesy Artists of Utah