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Martha Chatelain was born in Pasadena, California. While still a high school student, she received a scholarship to Chouinard
Art Institute where she studied from 1951-52. She graduated from UCLA with Honors in Art in 1957.
For the next twenty-five
years Martha focused on raising two children and supporting the meteoric careers of her husband, Don Chatelain. However, she
also continued to create paintings, photographs, and sculptures, especially during the years when she studied in the graduate
art programs of Cal State Los Angeles and San Diego State University.
After the family's move to San Diego in 1969,
Martha became a docent at La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, but her daughters also remember her stopping to photograph
interesting arrangements of shiny chrome standpipes or glossy egg yolks, the many innovative outfits she made for them, and
years spent exploring the natural world while Martha led their Girl Scout troops and helped Don and other friends launch "Oakbridge",
now a Young Life camp in the hills outside Ramona, California.
In 1982, at the age of 47, Martha began working full-time
on her art, making paper from 100% cotton and abaca fibers, using both a vacuum table and a vat, and combining the resulting
paper into sculptures. In 1984 she opened her own studio, Artfocus Ltd., at 9th and G Streets in San Diego's "arts corridor".
In 1995 Martha moved Artfocus north a few miles to a quiet neighborhood in the town of Pacific Beach.
As of 2000,
Martha continues to create and exhibit new work. She is grateful for the love, appreciation, and support of all her friends
and family members. She does not "take credit" for the power of her work, saying instead, "I have very definitely
experienced the fact that there is a great Creator in whose image we have all been created, and I feel that the work just
flows through me."
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