Saskatoon man says painting with coffee helped him get his feet back on the ground
Chris Relitz uses coffee to make paintings after surviving a violent attack
This story was originally published on Oct. 25, 2024.
Chris Relitz's life changed in an instant when he was brutally attacked. He says a dollar store paint kit — along with his wife's notoriously strong coffee — helped him find his path to healing.
A veteran psychiatric and ICU nurse, Chris Relitz worked at Saskatoon's St. Paul's Hospital for 19 years. He said he has always wanted to give to others in some way and providing comfort to people at the hospital was his happy place.
In February 2018, Relitz was working in the psychiatric ward when a patient he didn't know sucker punched him.
"I got knocked out with that first punch. He blindsided me over my shoulder," he said.
"Witnesses tell me there was a loud crack…. I was out cold and he got on top of me and just kept hitting."
Relitz said he suffered broken facial bones, eye damage and a traumatic brain injury that left him struggling to process things the way he used to. He spent the next two years trying to get better and back to work, but then he had a stroke.
"After that, all the symptoms — the brain fog, the chronic migraines — were just magnified times 10," he said. "There was no way I could read. There's no way I could work.… My life was pretty unhappy, pretty ugly."
Things started to turn around when his wife got him a paint-by-number kit.
"I got it out and I started working on it and I was pretty happy," Relitz said.
Around the same time, he heard about a friend self-publishing a comic that used coffee in the artwork. It got him wondering how someone could paint with coffee.
"I thought about it for a few days. I had this paint-by-number kit. I had this cheap little dollar-store brush that came with it and I had coffee," he said. "So I took that paintbrush and I was left with a pretty darn good painting of the barn."
Nineteen months later, he's made around 200 paintings with coffee.
"I have a reason to get up in the morning now, rather than lying there feeling like a failure at 50 years old," he said. "I paint every day and I've got a big show coming up."
He said forgiveness was important in the healing process.
"With the neuroplasticity of my brain healing, I was being told by a lot of counselors, you gotta embrace good positive things, because that's going to really imprint now."
Relitz said his visual disturbances and chronic pain led to a unique style in his art.
He does a lot of portraits of loved ones that have died: parents, grandparents and even pets.
"I feel like maybe these folks are finding some peace through what I'm doing, because I brought a lot of comfort to folks as a nurse," he said. "I think it's in my nature."
Relitz will have some of his work on display on Saturday at the Wild Oat Fine Art Show and Sale at Crossmount, just south of Saskatoon.
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