Red Flower Canvas Art Biography
Pop Chalee was a very famous canvas artist who mostly make flowers on canvas he know the proper meaning of canvas art born Merina Lujan on March 20, 1906 in Castle Gate, Utah. Her father, Joseph Cruz Lujan was from Taos and her mother Merea Margherete Luenberger, was predominately Swiss. Pop Chalee, which means Blue Flower, is a Tiwa name given to her by her Taos grandmother soon after birth. In the year that Pop Chalee was born, US President Theodore Roosevelt seized most of Taos Pueblo lands including Blue Lake, which vitally important for the Native Americans’ ceremonies.
Pop Chalee’s early life was fairly chaotic and her living situation changed many times over the years. Early in Chalee’s life the Lujan family broke up and moved away from Utah. Chalee was placed in the care of her father’s much older half-brother, Santiago Espinoza, who lived at Taos pueblo. Although she was not living with her sisters, they remained close as they were living near each other on the pueblo. After the first summer in Taos, Chalee’s father sent the children to the U.S. Indian School in Santa Fe. As a young teenager, Chalee was on the move again to return to Salt Lake City, Utah.
On the journey back to Utah, she realized that she couldn’t remember what her mother looked like. When they arrived at the station their mother never arrived to get them. After seeking out the help of a family friend they finally found their mother’s home, but were met with an unwelcome greeting. Chalee recalls their mother turning them away and calling them “little black devils”. “And boy, that cooled me out for my whole life. It did. It just cooled me. . .that devil business and her not coming down to pick us up were terrible. It took something out of me. And I never could get the feeling I should have had towards her.”Despite the cold welcome, Chalee would live at her mother’s house where she got her first job to contribute to the household. Chalee’s mother was a strict Mormon and was a tough disciplinarian to the children. She did have some good qualities, however, that she passed on. She was independent, physically strong and mechanically minded. One trait in particular had an influence on Chalee, her mother’s love of animals, especially Pekinese and chow dogs. This influence is captured in one of Chalee’s private paintings called Pekinese Dog, which is a very realistic portrayal of a Pekinese.
At age 16, Chalee could no longer tolerate the authoritarian and oppressive environment of her mother’s house and ran away. She married Otis Fred Hopkins, an Anglo craftsman of wood and metal. As she was starting her married life, international interest was growing for Native American art, which was defined more as the subject of Native Americans and not made by Native Americans. While Native American art shows were travelling around the county, Chalee gave birth to her first son at 18 yrs old; Jack Cruz (also named Kun Funa or Black Buffalo). Less than two years later, her daughter Betty (also named Pop Pina or Red Flower) was born."Buffalo Mural" by Pop Chalee, casein on canvas, 49"x202", Albuquerque International Sunport art collection.With her new family, Chalee moved back to Taos but did not participate in the community. She was further separated because of her marriage to an Anglo outsider, Otis. However, with his woodworking and metal skills he was allowed him to become part of the community, even more so than Pop. Although Chalee was reluctant to fully participate in the pueblo, her two children grew up participating in the community, as she and her siblings had.It was only after a year of living back in Taos that the Hopkins family moved back to Salt Lake City. This pattern of “shifting from one residence to another continued.”[2] It was the time of the great depression and Native American art began to receive increasing national attention. Pop wasn’t part of the movement yet, instead she was starting to make public appearances in LDS churches on Native American life. “These thematically linked her to her Native American culture” [3] and inadvertently portrayed her as a representative for her people. This commitment of public speaking to educate a “white” America about Indian life would continue well into Chalee’s later years.
Up to this point, Chalee had not considered a career in art. However, “[a]n unexpected visit in Utah to a fortune teller and a subsequent recurring dream inspired one of the most dramatic turning points in Pop Chalee’s life."[4] The fortune teller told her that she would break away from Utah and return to the place that she’d always wanted to go to, Taos. She told Pop that she would be somebody. This message started Chalee’s dreams of returning to Taos.t was shortly after the meeting with the fortune teller that Chalee and her family moved back to NM in the mid 1930’s. She went back to the school she had attended over 20 years ago to open a locker she had dreamed about frequently. When she finally arrived at the school and opened the locker she discovered it was empty. However, she realized that this was her chance to be an artist. It was not long afterwards that she was studying art at the Santa Fe Indian School with Dorothy Dunn.
She started with some difficulty as she was much older than most of the students and the only female for some time. However, her insecurities about her artwork were put to ease by Dorothy Dunn’s supportive encouragement and patience. Pop seemed to enjoy the school and finally settled in to her new role as an artist: “I’d always been kind of funny–I never did anything right. I’d try different things like dancing and couldn’t make it. But when I got into the art, I just stuck to it until I finally developed myself, then it just kind of opened the gates and I went on."[5] In Chalee’s biography by Margaret Cesa, her progress and involvement at “the Studio could be compared to jumping into a raging river, frightened at first and then later enjoying the speed and power of the rapids so much that she never leaves the water.At the school, Chalee was exposed to art techniques and art history that strengthened her pride in the work of Native American artists. Responding to a lecture given about modern American art, Pop Chalee commented “Some of our Indian artists paint in a style that the white man says can not be done, but still the Indian gets a perfectly balanced picture and the white artist generally puts a lot of unnecessary lines in a picture. We strive to tell a story in our paintings with as few lines as possible and leave out all unnecessary details. It is all done from memory."Clearly, Pop was beginning to form a very clear direction and model for her own art work.After finishing her first year, Pop began to work at the Laboratory of Anthropology as a paid copyist for Kenneth Chapman to document designs from the Laboratory’s vast collection of Native American pottery. “These tasks served to increase Pop Chalee’s appreciation of Native American arts and heighten her pride in her Pueblo heritage.”[8] During this time Pop was also invited to show her work at an exhibit at Stanford and also contribute to the magazine School Arts. This would be the beginning of a very long and celebrated art career.
Red Flower Canvas Art
Red Flower Canvas Art
Red Flower Canvas Art
Red Flower Canvas Art
Red Flower Canvas Art
Red Flower Canvas Art
Red Flower Canvas Art
Red Flower Canvas Art
Red Flower Canvas Art
How I Paint Flowers Bright Tulips Desert Cactus Acrylic Canvas Art Slideshow By Rami Benatar.Wmv
