Dear Friends,

 Another month gone by already. Wow, January went fast!!

January started mild and then, like the rest of the country, it turned cold and winter set in. It was a month of interviews and articles for me. Quilting Arts Magazine asked for my participation in an article about pricing your quilts for their February/March issue. The $100,000.00 Quilt Challenge Magazine will be featuring me in their March issue (this is the issue that announces the winner for their contest). Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine will be including me in their “First Quilt/Last Quilt” series in an upcoming issue.

In addition to that, I’m learning what it is like to organize a wedding!! Since our daughter lives in California and the wedding will take place in our garden in May, it is a bit more complicated. To add to the everything else, she is in Africa for the month (for her work). With her being there and our son in southeast Asia, it just makes life more interesting!!

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

Hollis
 

My Latest

The Desmond Tutu piece is progressing well. It is so big….A friend of mine once said that her professor told the class that whenever you embark on a huge project, “You can divide the project into threes, the first third you want to change the world, the second third you want to work with the world and the last third, forget the world, you just want to get the darn thing done”. Well, that is where I am. I’m coming into the home stretch and I’m ready to finish!! But the message in this piece is so important that I’m not ready to forget the world. It is about World Peace and the future of our children. Click here  to see another glimpse of it.

The work for the exhibit at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts in Boone, NC is also moving forward. Two of the tops are pieced together already and are waiting to be quilted. This exhibit will be solely abstract work and is based on photographs of antiques that my son took. All of the artwork will be small and there will be twelve pieces in the show.

In addition to the Desmond Tutu piece, and the abstract work, I am also working on a commission. The piece will depict imagery of the nomadic Tuaregs in West Africa.

Teaching

I will be traveling to San Antonio to start a new five year study program in the beginning of February. “Drawing to Increase Creativity I” is the first class in the program. Contact Charlotte Maxwell for more information. Click here

I will also be teaching a 2-day “Dye-Paint your Images” workshop and speaking on “Influences of Africa” at the Southwest School of Art & Craft in San Antonio, TX in February.  Click here

March will take me back to Asilomar in Monterey California to teach at the Empty Spools Seminar. I will be teaching a 5-day “Painting Images with Dyes / Bringing Them to Life with Quilting” workshop. This is such a special place to teach and we all have a great time in this class. Click here

Exhibiting

The International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, NE is sponsoring an exhibit called “Give and Take: the Artist – Student Dialogue” from February 5^th – March 4^th, 2007. The curator for the show is Michael James. The Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery will host the exhibition, which will juxtapose 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. One of my pieces will be shown beside one of Caryl Bryer Fallert’s. 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

This show will then travel to Columbus, Ohio to be featured at Ohio Arts Council’s downtown Riffe Gallery from May 3rd – July 8^th, 2007. Click here

There will be a solo exhibit showing my monochromatic statement work at Berea College in Berea, KY, April 10-21, 2007. This exhibit will include much of the work from the exhibit I am putting together called “Hope for Our World”. Each piece in the show will be a different color and will carry a message about social or environmental issues. My Desmond Tutu piece will be shown for the first time in this exhibit. "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 start at 3:00pm and will be open to the public. 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.  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 “Sahel”, “The Gift”, "Ecuadorian Girls", "Precious Water" (2 sizes available), "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.

To understand more about “giclee prints”, click here

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.

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