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.

Summer is in full swing here in North Carolina. I’m happy to be home this month as I was away the entire month of June! The days are HOT and the garden is full of birds, butterflies, dragonflies and bees.

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

Teaching– June 6-8 I taught a portraiture class in Berkeley, CA. Throughout the country I have been offering a program where I return to the same group of students in the same area once a year for five consecutive years to teach basic art classes. We start with drawing, progress to color and then add fabric to the classes. It is truly wonderful to watch the students as they grow in skill and confidence over the five years. (The next one is starting in February 2007 in San Antonio, TX. For more information click here )

Portraiture is Workshop #3 and we laughed (and cried) our way through the three days of portraiture as we drew from live models and did self-portraits. What a great group of women!

The middle two weeks of June we were in Switzerland visiting my husband’s family and helping our daughter move back to the states.

The last week of June I traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, where I taught and lectured for the Des Moines Area Quilters Guild. My mother is from Iowa and I have wonderful childhood memories of visiting my grandparent’s farm every summer and playing with my many cousins, so this trip was a bit like “going home”. I was lucky enough to spend four days with these very talented quilters and would go back in a heartbeat.

In August I will be teaching in Ohio at the “Quilts for Change 2006” conference. For more information click here

Exhibiting – Berea College in Berea, KY has asked me to do a solo exhibit in April 2007. This will be an exhibit showing my monochromatic statement work. Each piece in the show will be a different color and will carry a message about social or environmental issues. My new Desmond Tutu piece will be shown for the first time in this exhibit. 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.

My Latest – July will be a month of quilting. I finished painting my Desmond Tutu piece at the end of May. It measures 88” x 88” unwashed. Boy is it big!! Here is a little glimpse of it: click here .. As I quilt, I will put up more images of it.

Website – We have received the new giclees of “Fatima’s Son”, “School: It’s Never Too Late to Learn”, and “Nature’s Gift” and they are beautiful. We now 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. This has been long in the planning and I am thrilled that it has finally happened.