Navajo artist creates success in art, business

by JAMIE A. WELCH Cal Nez, a Salt Lake City graphic designer, began his own business in 1986, nine years after graduating from high school. At the time, he was newly married and awaiting the birth of his first child. Though this may seem like a large risk to take, Nez simply shrugs and says, [...]

A Native American leader

by CADE SORENSEN Robert Jarvik, inventor of the first artificial heart, once said, “Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.” Cal Nez is a leader to many Native Americans because of his vision and lack of fear. Nez is the owner of Cal Nez [...]

Cal Nez: artist, graphic designer, leader

by BRANDON FAUSETT The children stood silently in a line, their eyes focused forward, arms firmly placed to their sides, their backs straight. The hour has passed and the children are let go so they can make their way to school. “I feel like I was at prison when I went to boarding school,” Cal [...]

SLC graphic designer promotes Native American business development

by ALLISON JOHNSON See historical photos of Indian boarding schools (best viewed in full-screen mode) Cal Nez, founder of Cal Nez Design, is a man with a vision to revolutionize the Native American business industry in Utah. As the owner of one of the most successful graphic design companies in the state, he is well on [...]

Salt Lake graphic designer builds business from scratch

by LANA GROVES Cal Nez remembered working at a small but growing graphic design business in Utah in the late 1980s. He was content being an artist and working on logos and designs, but the pay was small for the number of awards his designs were receiving. “We were the ad agency, graphic design [company] [...]

Keeping art alive through graphic design

by AARON K. SCHWENDIMAN A black hat and mirrored aviator sunglasses stares from the page. A Navajo person looks onto an audience cheering for the participants in a rodeo while a carnival goes on in the background. In the reflection is a community joining together for its nations fair. “I wanted every viewer to ‘become’ a Navajo [...]

For SLC graphic designer, a life spent searching for home and helping others

by CHRIS MUMFORD Perched on the edge of a mesa overlooking Albuquerque, N.M., surrounded by a desert calm interrupted only by the occasional breeze, is where you’ll find Cal Nez with his laptop, sending email, completing the mundane clerical tasks associated with his work as a graphic designer. Nez, speaking to a reporting class at [...]

For Cal Nez, it’s all in the journey

by KATHRYN JONES Cal Nez says he didn’t like the six years he spent in boarding school, that it was more like a prison than a school. He says it didn’t make him angry even though he was forced to leave his grandparents when he was 5. He describes his Navajo beginnings in Tocito, N.M., [...]

Cal Nez has found his home in Salt Lake City

by BRYNN TOLMAN An old English proverb says, “Home is where the heart is.” Another variation says, “Home is where you hang your hat.” The search for home is never simple, but it’s important to make peace with the answers that come from the journey. Cal Nez is now content calling Salt Lake City home; [...]