The world of Flower Blue

by Margaret Cesa

Pop Chalee was one of the first Native American woman artists to achieve national fame, recognition and commercial success. The author Margaret Cesa takes us back to the beginnings of this remarkable woman, born in 1906 in the drab mining town of Castlegate, Utah. Pop's mother, Merea Margherete Luenberger, was from Berne, Switzerland. Her father was Joe Lujan of Taos Pueblo. She was a graduate of the famous 1937 class of the Dorothy Dunn studio at the Santa Fe Indian School. Her paintings, jewelry, textile designs and murals grace museums, private collections and public institutions across the country. During her artistic life, Pop knew some of the most influential people of her times. From the long collaboration of Pop Chalee and Margaret Cesa, we hear, in the artist's own voice, the story and burdens of being a Native American woman artist in a society that was often hostile to one or another of those terms.