Albuquerque Journal: Hollis Chitto
8/16/2020
Hollis Chitto (Choctaw/Laguna Pueblo) attended his first Santa Fe Indian Market when he was 5 years old, selling clay masks next to his father Randy Chitto’s clay turtles and bears. “They hung on the wall and they were kind of cute,” he said from his Santa Fe home. “My favorite part was decorating them with beads.” Today he embellishes bags and dolls with a dizzying palette of 100-year-old micro beads, some as fine as a grain of sugar. Chitto’s work hangs in the Santa Fe gallery Hecho a Mano at hechoamano.org through Aug. 23. It all started when a young Chitto discovered a cache of his mother’s old beads in the family garage. His Choctaw grandmother had been a beadworker. Although she died when he was very young, the family believes he draws his facility with hair-thin needles and microscopic glass from her.