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.

July flew by! August is here and busy, busy, busy!! Our son Gael came home from Africa for a few weeks. He and his girlfriend had been traveling. They went from Europe to Mali in West Africa, through the desert, on their motorcycles. They are now in the process of opening a small hotel and café in Bamako, the capital of Mali. It has been fun having them home.

Marga de Bruijn, a quilt artist and good friend of mine will have an exhibit at the Exotique shop in Durham, NC, from Sept.13th until October 5th. The owner of the shop is very involved in an organization called Kybele whose goal is to prevent childbirth related injury and death which affect millions of women and newborns each year. Click here for more information on this organization. Marga is making a quilt that will be auctioned with all the profit going to the organization. The quilt is called "Sierra Leone" and its design is based on a woven rug from

Sierra Leone. Donations can be made through the organization's website.

The Rainforest part measures 8’ W x 2’H. Baobab Forest measures approximately 9’W x 2’ H and the Desert part measures 5’W x 2’H. This triptych will be included in my exhibit “Imagine Hope” www.imagine-hope.com .

“Figuratively Speaking” will open August 9^thand run through October 5^th, 2008 at the Visions Art Quilt Gallery in San Diego, California. Exodus will be in this exhibit. Click here for more information .

The exhibit “Creative Force: Masters”, which was curated by Martha Sielman, will be shown at the International Quilt Festival in Houston in October 2008, then will travel to Chicago and California. The works of forty artists from the book "Masters: Art Quilts" will be shown in this exhibit. I will be represented by “Blue Men” .

The book "Masters: Art Quilts" is now available. Forty artists were selected worldwide and each one is featured in an 8 page mini-retrospective, showing approximately 10 artworks from each person.
The book is available on the SAQA website and on Amazon.com

Last month I made a mistake when I wrote that I will be teaching at the Durham Orange Quilters in September. Sorry about that! I meant to say I will teach there in November. Click here for more information.

September 11-th – 13^th I will travel to California to teach a three day dye-painting/quilting workshop at the Beach Cities Quilters Guild in San Juan Capistrano. I will also be lecturing about The Relationship Between Drawing and Quilting.

I will be teaching Color Challenge I September 22^nd – 25th in Waterville Valley in New Hampshire. This workshop is part of my long term art course. We happen to have two openings in this class because of cancellations. If you have taken my “The Art of Color” workshop (required prerequisite) and are interested in being challenged, please contact Michele Koppelman. This workshop is a retreat and is being held in a beautiful place with the BEST food I have ever had at any workshop ever!

In the meantime I am going into my studio to work on the pieces that will go into my exhibit “Imagine Hope” that will be complete in January 2010.

Our puppy is growing and keeping us busy. We have often questioned our sanity this last month. With our household zoo of three dogs, two cats and a parrot, it sometimes seems that we do nothing more than care for animals. But we do have fun with them! Click here.

Continuing with the garden, here is a hanging sculpture that we call "Glimmers of Light" and a new addition of “railroad spike mushrooms” that we put in last week. My husband sand blasted and I painted these sculptures.

We had friends from Switzerland visiting a few weeks ago. They took some pictures of the wildlife in our garden. Have a look at some birds, and butterflies.

Please check out my new website www.imagine-hope.com . Within the next couple of months we will be adding much more detail about my exhibit “Imagine Hope”. This exhibit will have textile pieces speaking about worldwide issues and black & white photographs from prominent photographers dealing with the same subjects.

We have giclee prints of “Exodus”, “Hope For Our World” and "The Gift", the two winning quilts in Houston in 2007. There are also prints available of “The Grandfather”, “Sahel”, “Ecuadorian Girls”, “Captured”, “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 and to learn more about giclee prints.

All of the threads that I designed for Superior Threads are for sale on the website click here . Living Colors and Nature Colors 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.