Mamie Deschillie lived a unique and interesting life. She was born in a hogan on the Navajo Reservation near Chaco Canyon in 1920 when the primary mode of transportation was wagon or horse. When she passed in 2010, her work was in the Smithsonian Museum, the American Museum of Folk Art, and countless private collections worldwide.
Her beginnings did not predict her success or fame as an artist. She attended boarding school through the third grade but never mastered English, preferring to communicate in Navajo. She learned to weave before most children entered high school and was responsible for herding the family's sheep. When she was 16, she married and settled with her husband in the isolated Burnham Chapter area, south of Shiprock and east of Two Grey Hills.
She raised five children and was a grandmother in her thirties. She was widowed at 59, and, according to her daughter, Jane Jones, she started her art career by making mud toys and figures made of sun-dried earth and clay, which Navajo children have played with since the 1800s. She then moved on to crafting images of animals and people from cardboard.
According to her daughter, her first sale came from a pawn shop owner who noticed how frequently she pawned her classic traditional jewelry. He invited her to sell him her unique mud toys.
As Jones said, "She was never one to ask for things. She was so proud, strong-hearted, and independent. She did art to keep her mind busy and her purse full."
Her cardboard images were made from materials she salvaged from dumpsters and were decorated with recycled materials or items given to her at art shows by her admirers.
LelandHoliday, part of the Navajo folk art revival in the 1990s, remembers doing shows with Mamie.
"She was nice to my brother (Roger Armstrong) and me," he remembers. She was walking around a show, checking all of the booths out, and when she saw our work, she stopped to talk and was happy that we could speak Navajo. She wanted to know all about us, our clan names, and where we were from.
"She liked what we were doing and encouraged us. After that, we always looked for her at shows to see what she was making and share our work. She was a nice lady."
One of his memories of her was when a huge windstorm came up during a show. "Her cardboard figures were blowing around, and all her grandchildren were chasing them down and bringing them back to her." You can imagine cardboard horses, cows, and giraffes flying through the air!
In the 90s, she started painting these same folk art images on cardboard, which proved to be as popular as her other art.
Robb Lucas, the former manager of the Case Trading Post at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, was her long-time supporter. "It was true folk art. Her art came from the heart, the world around her, and her imagination.
"Later in life, she moved into a trailer in Fruitland, south of Farmington, on the San Juan River. She spent a lot of time volunteering with children and was the Upper Fruitland Senior Citizens Association president.
Lucas remembered, "She was a dignified woman, always dressed traditionally with her jewelry. She was just very unique."
