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.

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were relaxing and full of peace and joy.

December was mild and wet in North Carolina. It was a family month for me with our daughter and her fiancé coming from California to spend the holidays with us. The work in the studio this month consisted of making drawings for new work, and, catching up, cleaning up and finishing up small projects I had started in 2006. All of this is good to get ready for the new year. 2007 is going to be a great year!!

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

Several small pieces were completed in December. I have many little quilts I have started and am now attempting to finish. They will be put up on the website soon.

In the months ahead I will be working on a number of projects at once. I am almost finished with all of the drawings for the exhibit at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts in Boone, NC. This exhibit will be solely abstract work. All of the pieces will be small and I hope to have twelve 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.

January will be a month of working in the studio. I will start to teach again in February when I go to San Antonio to start a new five year study program. “Drawing to Increase Creativity I” is the first class in the program. Contact Charlotte Maxwell. 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 or contact Robert Hils for more information.

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

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 “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.