How meeting Navajo artist, CARLIS CHEE, on the Road Runner Train, transformed my understanding of visual art

The Navajo Artist Who Opened My Eyes By Painting With His Heart

How meeting Navajo artist, CARLIS CHEE, on the Road Runner Train, transformed my understanding of visual art

(SANTA FE, NM / SAVANNAH, GA) I was waiting for the 2:46 p.m. train from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, when a man with a yellow polka dot bandana tied around his neck and a black backpack over his shoulder sat across from me. He blinked—the sun glared into his eyes—so I motioned for him to sit beside me.

Just as the crowd was preparing for the ride, a tall older woman walked outside and announced to us that the train had been cancelled, and she wasn’t sure when the next one would be departing.

Actually, part of me was relieved. The delay felt like a chance to linger in Santa Fe’s glow, and get to talk to this artist-looking guy a bit longer.

I’d been enjoying art shops and restaurants during my one-day birthday getaway. My daughter had to work that day in Albuquerque, so  I came alone, all the way from Savannah, Georgia, where I now live.

I looked at the man and said, “I’m not from here, any idea for a plan B?” He said that there used to be a shuttle that left from the hotel next to the depot—so we walked over there. Unfortunately, that had been discontinued during COVID.

We found out that the next possible train was at 5:30 p.m., so we decided to hang out and walk back into Santa Fe and eat at a place called Iconik Coffee Roasters. It reminded me of my favorite coffee shop in Savannah, GA, The Sentient Bean.

I then asked him what he does.

“I’m a full-time artist. I paint and I’m also a writer and photographer,” he said.

I asked to see some of his work so he pulled out his iPad, and opened some photos and flipped it around for me to see, as he started to eat his salad.

This art wasn’t like anything I have ever seen before coming from the East Coast. It was clearly contemporary Native American art.

“Are you Native American?” I asked.

“Yes, Navajo,” he said, in between bites. “I was born on the Rez. I was raised by my grandmother from the time I was 2 years old, but she died when I was 10. I was basically homeless after that.”

My mind raced. I have never met a Native American much less a person that had been homeless at 10! I had so many questions.

He added, “We didn’t even have electricity growing up.”

He explained that he ended up bouncing around staying at his older siblings’ and boarding schools but he always ended up leaving—maybe searching for a better life, I thought, or to find some stability? I tried to imagine my life as a 10-year-old kid being homeless. I couldn’t even comprehend the emotional pain and hardship he experienced.

He said he was often hungry.

While he was sipping on his coffee, he pointed to a painting he did of a woman with her eyes closed. “I paint my grandmother to honor her,” he said as he pointed to her.

The painting was emotional to look at. I felt his love for this woman who raised him. He swiped through numerous paintings, mostly of his grandmother.

These paintings sparked my emotions and curiosity.

I pulled his iPad closer and enlarged one of the images. I expanded her face—her eyes were closed. I wanted to ask him why he painted so many of these images with closed eyes. What did that symbolize in his culture? What is she thinking? Is she praying or meditating? I then followed the painted lines to see mountains behind her. I started to feel the nostalgia of remembering the sacred land, the precious times they spent together. My gaze focused even more—I started to see the tiny details, his lovingly drawn lines of textures, so complex and detailed that it was like the DNA of his grandmother’s soul.

All the geometric vignettes buried in the paintings were like all the bits and pieces recording one’s life in art. I felt like they were there to represent events that happened in his life and her life. The painting felt like a diary without words. I felt like I had a front-row seat into the private life of this Navajo family.

Another shape I saw in many of his paintings was the circle. These painted little circles have details, textures and maybe a visual message, I thought. Could it represent Carlis’ early drifting in life, like a bubble blowing in the wind, maybe to land in a happier place? Maybe it is a prayer to the universe?

I wanted to ask but  realized that art is how we interpret it. What does it mean to the viewer, me!

I scrolled through his paintings from over the years, so many of his grandmother, so many geometric shapes. His style is so distinctive, so emotional, that I can’t just glance and move on. Each painting felt like a message in a bottle, cast out just for me. I had to sit with it, uncork it, and read what’s been waiting inside.

This was nothing like the Impressionism I had studied, where light and brushstrokes hid more than they revealed. Carlis’ art unfolded. It demanded I lean in, feel, and not just look.

He showed me some of his early works that he did in his teens while at boarding school on the Reservation in Tuba City, AZ. That was where he met Sid Stewart, his art teacher who introduced Carlis to painting. His early works seemed more realistic, yet hints of his future style were there.

He showed me some more paintings from his twenties, where he became intrigued with the Japanese styles of a lot of space and simplicity. I can see that this style still is prevalent in his works today.

As his work matured into his 30s, he started to add more textures, landscapes, nudes and more and still-lifes. This is also where he starts to add gold and copper colors. His work was even more contemporary, interpretive and modern.

Carlis got a refill of another cup of coffee and said, “I stopped struggling with lines and color during my 40s.” I could also see that confidence in his brushstrokes and colors with the art he was showing me.

He said that the turning point for his art career came when his work was featured in Amado Peña’s gallery. It was an honor to stand alongside legends like Peña, R.C. Gorman, and other masters of Native art.

Carlis said that now that he was in his 50s, he knows that art adopted him from a young age. It became “his lover, his water, his food” were his exact words.“ Art is energy. It is everything,” he said.

When he finished his salad, he looked up and quietly said, “Art picked me.”

He mentioned that he is having a Hogan built for his art studio, that has a higher ceiling to accommodate his large easel. It is being built on the Navajo Nation. I had to Google what a Hogan was.  I then looked up info about Navajo Nation and learned that there are only about 330K Navajos in the USA, with more than half  living on the Reservation.

After a late lunch, we ended up walking back to the train station.

As we rounded the corner to the depot, the Rail Runner came into view, its arrival perfectly timed, like one of Carlis’ deliberate brushstrokes.

We climbed aboard and ascended to the second floor. I felt a quiet thrill at this unexpected gift of even more time with my new friend, this artist who saw the world in textures and meanings that I was only beginning to understand.

Carlis pulled out his phone. He showed me his dog named Abina, which means “morning” in Navajo. He then showed me Gio, his “puddy-tat.” He said, no human children, but these two mean the world to me.

I laughed to myself—Gio’s independence was like his paintings and him.  I could tell he didn’t follow any rules. He created his own, just like a cat.

I savored every minute of that hour and a half train ride to Albuquerque. When we reached the Montaño stop, where I had parked my daughter’s car, I reluctantly stood to leave and gave him a hug. As I waved goodbye from the platform, I saw his hand waving back through the window, his fingers moving like an artist sketching unseen lines in the air.

Maybe one day, I thought, Carlis could visit Savannah. The schoolchildren there could hear his story of growing up on the Rez, surviving homelessness, becoming an artist, and learning to paint the world not just as it appears, but as it feels deep in the bones.

His journey could teach them what I learned that afternoon: a grandmother’s wisdom comes when you seek guidance, and the bold brushstrokes of his mountains will point the way when you’re ready to embrace your next move in life.  Trust the universe.

Meeting Carlis Chee was more than a serendipitous encounter. It was an immersion into a rich cultural and emotional narrative expressed through art, inviting me to embark on my own introspective journey.

That encounter months ago has stayed with me. The closed eyes of his grandmother, Anna Jean, was a sign for me to pause, enjoy the moment, be grateful for all the blessings in my life—which now include meeting my new friend, Carlis Chee, a Navajo fine artist who had survived a very tumultuous childhood, basically on his own.

His paintings and writings are raw. He captures the essence of his Navajo upbringing in a contemporary form. I can’t wait for his book of poetry to come out later this year.

Carlis today, at age 56, has hundreds of patrons who buy his work and encourage his creativity daily on his private Facebook page. The energy from his collectors is unlike anything I have ever seen on social media. They are cheering him on, buying his art, and holding on to each of his words as he shares his life so freely. His story could actually become a movie.

I feel honored to be one of his many admirers.

P.S. Anna Jean, your legacy lives on through your adoring grandson, Carlis Chee.