Hollie's work gets me every time. I love her use of vintage books and bright shapes, and the way she combines bits of intricate scribbles in her textural creations. She uses vintage images of people, but thinks a lot of the silhouette and and doesn't let the photo do all of the work. Her blog has some excellent pictures of her process as well.

Hollie Chastain
http://drkennedyjones.blogspot.com/
Chattanooga, Tennessee

Describe your work in 10 words or less.

Mixed-media visual storytelling using a borrowed past.

What do you like to work with (magazines, photographs, vintage)? Be specific!

Currently I work with only vintage materials and I can't see that changing anytime soon. The character and unique textures that age adds to materials greatly shapes my work. I look for anything from the early 70s back and I think my oldest material so far has been a small stack of 4 editions of the New York Ledger, the oldest dated February of 1873. Opening a book cover and finding a water-damaged page spotted with dye ink and mold is heaven to me. Recently I've become really influenced by this immense stack of TIME magazines from the 70s that I bought back in February for a workshop. The hues printed around that time are crazy-sweet.

How long have you been creating collages and what made you start?

I'm sure I worked with collage in school but I can't remember. Obviously not to the point that I was pleased with any of the results. Just before I left my full time job about 2 years ago I began experimenting with collage using a quickly-growing collection of vintage books and ephemera and combining it with illustration and something just clicked.

Are you solely an artist, or do you work in another profession?

I am solely an artist at this time.

Do you have any formal art training?

To a point. I was involved in art classes both in and out of school all the way through high school then went to college on an art scholarship. Once I was there, though, I split my classes between art and business. I kept my college art education broad and basic to learn as many techniques as i could without feeling like my existing viewpoint and style was being compromised.

Explain your favourite techniques.

I love getting completely lost in layering. It's my very favorite thing. I always clip a color palette the day before so when I approach it again in the morning I can see only those colors and shapes without my mind cluttered with all the discarded and rejected clippings from the day before. I don't touch anything until I have music on, a strict rule of mine, then I will spend hours building layers up and over and intertwining. I never glue until the end which makes it especially tricky and can sometimes take several additional hours to adhere everything to the board.

Describe your favourite piece ever created.

Pieces that I carry with me the longest tend to be pieces that were inspired by an event and those events are almost always musical experiences. A recent piece, The Annex, was made a few days after returning from seeing Gang Gang Dance at The Annex in Knoxville. Lix Bougatsos was absolutely inspiring and that performance was on my mind for days after. My very favorite piece, though, has to be Something We Shouldn't Be Doing which was made when I was fresh home from a concert-driven trip up the east coast with an incredible friend. That one means a lot and I don't typically keep my work but if I was going to keep one for myself it would have been that one.

What other artists do you admire?

My long-time loves are the outsiders especially Henry Darger and James Harold Jennings. I adore the work created by Jónsi and Alex, who previously worked under the name Riceboy Sleeps. I've also been completely smitten with Souther Salazar's work for years. Recently my admiration is directed to Alexis Anne MacKenzie, Olivia Jeffries, Chris Hipkiss, Erica il Cane, Hollis Brown Thornton and the Greedy Hen duo.

Thanks Hollie!