ARTIST PROJECT
The Painted Desert – Pandemic As Portal
Chip Thomas
Chip Thomas
Artist WebsiteChip Thomas, aka “jetsonorama” is a
photographer, public artist, activist and physician
who has been working on the Navajo Nation since
1987. Chip grew up in North Carolina where he
was first exposed to the philosophy of doing the
greatest good for the greatest number. He moved
to the Diné Nation in 1981 to repay a National
Health Service Corps scholarship by volunteering
his skills in a community with limited healthcare.
obligation, he had fallen in love with both the
people and the landscape.
Today, Chip’s public-art installations – known as
The Painted Desert Project – are bolstering the
community through a constellation of murals
across the Navajo Nation painted by artists from
all over the reservation and the world. He is a
member of the Justseeds Artists Co-operative, a
collective of 30 socially-engaged artists. You can
find his large scale photographs pasted on the
roadside, on the sides of houses in the desert, on
the graphics of the Peoples Climate March,
Justseeds and 350.org carbon emissions/climate
change campaign material. Chip still practices
family medicine four days a week at the Inscription
House Health Center, a clinic outside the village of
Shonto.
Chip Thomas proposes a public art campaign to address the healthcare emergency among Arizona’s Navajo Nation, which occupies portions of Northeastern Arizona, Southeastern Utah and Northwestern New Mexico. In the wake of hundreds of years of systemic oppression, the Navajo have been disproportionately affected by mental health issues such as obesity, diabetes and suicide. Now, they face an unprecedented existential threat, with the pandemic claiming the lives of their Elders — custodians of their oral history — and much of the younger generation struggling to preserve their culture. Faced with this emergency, Chip leads a collective of local artists to address the threat head-on through a public art campaign. Collaborating with the community, they attempt to reach the Navajo people directly, and present a path forward — in order to rekindle the f
GALLERY
