Hollis Chatelain - Textile Artist

Many people ask me what I am working on, where my work is being exhibited and how I am spending my time. This is a new addition to the website that will be updated monthly with the latest things that are happening in my life.

I’m writing from beautiful Monterey, California where I’m teaching at the Empty Spools Seminar being held at the Asilomar Conference Center. This is a wonderful conference.

March hit me with yet another family surprise (this is twice in three weeks!). I turned fifty this month and the Saturday before my birthday I was working in my studio when in walked my daughter who lives in Oakland!! Boy, what a shock!! This was my husband’s gift…to have the whole family together for my birthday. It was so very special.

Spring is coming to North Carolina. The days are warm and our garden is coming to life. Oh, how I love this time of year!! Since we have a wedding in our garden in just 2 months, we are waiting with anticipation for the flowers to pop their little green leaves through the soil.

The March issue of the $100,000.00 Quilting Challenge Magazine is out. They have announced the winner of their $100,000.00 prize and have photos of the beautiful quilt. There is also an article featuring me in this issue.

Enclosed you will find the April newsletter. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me.

For three weeks I got up between 2:00 and 3:00 AM to quilt “Hope For Our World” (the Desmond Tutu piece). But alas, I didn’t finish it (it is just so big!). I took it to Capital Quilters unfinished and then hit the wall the Sunday afterwards. The days before Asilomar I took a break from quilting and tried to catch up on all of the other things I had neglected for three weeks. When I get back, I will finish it. It is a gentle piece and quite different than some of my other works. Click here to see the not quite finished view of it.

March 15^th-March 17^th I lectured and taught two workshops for the Capital Quilters in Raleigh, NC. The workshops were full with eager students (we even had a student who came all the way from

Canada

!) and we really had a good time. Click here

As I mentioned in the beginning, I am now at Asilomar Conference Center in Monterey California teaching at the Empty Spools Seminar. I am teaching a 5-day “Painting Images with Dyes / Bringing Them to Life with Quilting” workshop. This is such a special place. The students are very enthusiastic and we started painting yesterday. Click here

April 21^st and 22^nd I will teach 2 workshops for the Kentucky Heritage Quilt Society in Berea, KY. Click here for more information.

The exhibit called “Give and Take: The Artist – Student Dialogue” is traveling to Columbus, Ohio to be featured at Ohio Arts Council’s downtown Riffe Gallery from May 3rd – July 8^th, 2007. Michael James curated this show which juxtaposes the work of nine artists and their respective Quilt Surface Design Symposium student artists in order to spotlight the role that QSDS has played in the education of the contemporary studio quiltmaker. "The Gift" will be shown beside one of Caryl Bryer Fallert’s quilts . I first came to Ohio to the Quilt Surface Design Symposium in June 1993 and took a class from Caryl. She eventually became my mentor. Click here for information.

Berea College in Kentucky is hosting an exhibit of six of my pieces from April 9^th-April 21^st, 2007. This exhibit will include five of the works from the exhibit I am putting together called “Hope for Our World”. Each art piece in the show is based on a different monochromatic color and carries a message about social or environmental issues. Berea College was where I had a meeting with Desmond Tutu in May 2005 to discuss the making of my piece “Hope For Our World” which is based on one of my dreams. “The Gift” will also be there.
Berea has also invited me for a convocation event April 19, 2007. I will be speaking on “The Emotion of Color and How it Affects Activism in Art”. In the last years, I have been working uniquely with monochromatic color schemes in my statement art. Since each color evokes its own emotion, this is a topic that truly fascinates me. This convocation event will be open to the public and I will be taking “Hope For Our World” (the artwork depicting Desmond Tutu) to hang beside me when I speak. For more information click here

Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC has invited me to do a solo exhibit October 5 – November 17, 2007. The exhibit will be called “Antiques to Abstract” and will show 12 abstract pieces based on photographs of antiques that my son took. click here for more information.
I will also be teaching a 5-day workshop at the Mountain Laurel Quilt Guild October 1-5, 2007. For more information, contact Candace St. Lawrence click here

We now have giclee prints of “The Grandfather”, “Sahel”, “The Gift”, "Ecuadorian Girls", "Precious Water", "Fatima’s Son", "School: It’s Never Too Late to Learn"," Nature’s Gift", "Blue Men", "Burkinabe Mother" and "Untold Secrets", and they are all beautiful. click here to check out all the prints.

All of the threads that I designed for Superior Threads are for sale on the website. They are sold in packs of 25 because I have found that quilters use threads in a more unique and exciting way when they have the opportunity to “audition” a number of different colors (just like we do with fabrics) before making their final choices. click here

We have a secure system where you can order thread, fabric, prints and my artwork directly on line and pay by credit card or Pay Pal.