Cheng-Khee Chee

A look inside the world of a master watercolorist

Tony Bennett

Cheng-Khee Chee’s reputation precedes him. Not only his reputation as one of the finest watercolor artists around, but also his reputation as a really nice person. Tell someone you’re meeting with him, and they’re bound to say, “Oh, he’s the best!” or some such thing. Perhaps, then, the neatest thing about meeting Chee is that he completely lives up to that reputation.

Both Cheng-Khee and his wife Sing-Bee are famously kind, and they welcome visiting writers into their lovely East Duluth home with enthusiasm and wide smiles. Tea is offered, Ferrero-Rocher candies are dispensed, and both husband and wife proudly show off the sprawling headquarters of Chee, Inc. It’s quite an impressive operation, and they run it as a team.

One whole wall is nothing but meticulously organized Chee prints, ready for shipping. The main room is positively overflowing with full-size, framed paintings. And, in the back, Chee’s work-room sits, bathed in sunlight. (Well, more like dim grey light. It is early summer in Duluth, after all.) If you’re not familiar with Chee’s work, know this: you might be in a rapidly-shrinking minority. Over the last thirty or so years, the former UMD librarian and art professor has seen his work garner a vast amount of attention due to its extremely evocative, dreamlike emotionality.

Chee’s series of paintings of koi and squirrels have brought him accolade upon accolade, and his illustrations for books like the award-winning Old Turtle have made his name famous enough for it to be listed in Who’s Who in America. But Chee is nothing less than humble, open, and inviting. Sitting in his home, surrounded by his work, one really gets the sense that his work is his life, and vice versa. There’s not Chee the man and Chee the painter, there’s just Chee.

The routine of an arts master Ever since the longtime Duluth resident retired from teaching at UMD (he’s a Professor Emeritus there), he’s been able to pursue his art full-time, and he’s clearly got it down to a science. “When I was working full-time, I painted nights, weekends, holidays – all that. But now, of course, I have a very, very disciplined routine,” he says. “I get up quite early in the morning. I’m an early riser – five-thirty, six, I get up. First thing —” he points to a folded-up treadmill in the corner of the room — “I unfold that, and I do half an hour. Except Sunday. That’s my routine. Then, we eat a simple breakfast, read the newspaper. I come down to work around nine o’clock. We get a lunch break at noon.”

He’s worked it out so that he can maximize his creative output. Not because he wants to, because he has to. “You see,” Chee explains, “art, a poem, a piece of music — it’s the same thing. You feel something deeply, you feel that you have to get it off your chest. Then you do it. Poets, they don’t just write something. It’s always something that inspired them, something they have strong feelings [about] or hate or love or passion or whatnot.”

These things drive Cheng-Khee Chee, and he is devoting his life to channeling the emotions that he feels so strongly into his work. When he sits down to paint, he goes for the gut, rather than the head: “I start with emotion,” he says. And he also feels that his emotions have to be well-informed by experience. “Whatever I paint, I have to have thorough knowledge,” he says. “I will never paint anything that I’ve never seen. Not only that, I have to have strong feelings toward the subject matter. When I paint, then my painting will hopefully have emotional content.”

This emotional content can be simple, or it can be complex. Chee points out a newer painting of his, one that depicts an older couple rummaging through a trash can in an alley. He explains that the couple is looking for leftover turkey, perhaps after Thanksgiving. It’s a specific scene that he came across, once, and it stuck in his head. He painted it because he wanted to say something about poverty. “Artists have social responsibility. This is the kind of thing I feel deeply.”

Chee has poured these feelings into his art for many years now, and it’s turned out that his work has afforded him many opportunities. Currently, his travel schedule is booked into 2009 with workshop after workshop, all over the United States. Chee loves the travel, but he also treasures the time he gets to spend with other artists. “You get to see places. We have covered almost all the fifty states. You make a lot of friends. Now, when you travel to new places, sometimes you’re inspired by the scenery, and then sometimes you work with artists who are quite creative, and you can also learn from [them]. The students, of course, they’re [at] different levels of accomplishment. Sometimes, you can look over the student’s shoulder, and you can pick up things, too.”

This statement is enlightening – Chee is a man who has his own instructional DVD series, and here he is taking joy in learning from others. It’s hard not to be charmed by this attitude. After you talk to the artist for a while, though, it makes sense. He’s not resting on his laurels, even though he probably could. Cheng-Khee Chee is always looking toward that next painting. “I’m happy whenever I paint,” he says. “I’m not satisfied with any painting I do, but I’m always happy when I paint, knowing that each painting is taking me one step closer.” Closer to what? “For me, I’m searching for the perfect watercolor. If I found that, then I’d be willing to die. For me, I haven’t found one, so I will continue to search. I’m always on the journey searching for that perfect watercolor. I’m never satisfied with any painting I’ve done. Certainly, sometimes you are happy, but I’m never satisfied. I know that each painting I do is taking me one step closer to the perfect watercolor. And that’s my attitude.”

Ask Chee if he thinks that perfect watercolor even exists, and he answers your question with a question: “Do you think truth exists?” This is part of the man’s charm. He’s a searcher, a philosopher. He doesn’t make art because it’s nice to look at — he does it because it makes the observer think and feel emotions they otherwise would not. For him, it seems to be about awakening things in himself and in other people, stirring the soul, leaving a positive mark on the world.

This pursuit gets him up on that treadmill and in front of his easel every morning. It’s nice to know, then, that an artist of Chee’s integrity and caliber calls Duluth home. He and Sing-Bee have lived in the area since the mid-sixties. “Certainly, [Duluth is] very rich in subject matter,” he says. “It’s a great place for artists —just look at the harbor. Minnesota as a whole is pretty flat — here, we have some hills. The city itself is quite interesting. The seasons change.” In the end, the town is part of the man, just as the man is part of the town. It all ends up in his work, somehow, even if it is just one small element, one tiny emotion. It all adds up to something that represents Cheng-Khee Chee. “Ultimately, your art becomes your portrait,” he says. “When people look at your art, they don’t have to look at the signature to know this is so-and-so’s art. And this is what I’m striving for.”

 

Tony Bennett is a Duluth-based writer.

This article appears in its entirety in the Julu 2008 issue of Duluth~Superior Magazine.
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