Carson Colcha Embroideries: From Ersatz to Orthodox

In the 5th century BCE, Heraclitus wrote, “Everything in time begets its opposite.” The history of the Carson colchas of New Mexico appears to follow that axiom. Under a range of epithets from “fake” to “authentic,” these embroideries evolved during the 1930s as marketable (alternately enigmatic) replications or copies of 19th century Spanish colonial textiles to finally emerge as a distinctly recognized, legitimate genre of traditional Hispanic needlework in the late 20th century. These pieces were originally associated with the Carson community dominated by a clan of Mormon brothers married to Hispanic sisters, which created a complex intermingling of Anglo Mormon entrepreneurial guidance with Hispanic and Anglo artistic collaboration. My presentation traces the evolution of the Carson colcha legacy as the calculated invention of a Mormon trader who saw an opportunity to create historically “authentic” embroideries from the remnants of genuine Spanish colonial textiles. In the process, appropriation encompasses everything from reusing yarn and patching together original foundation fabrics to borrowing iconography while simulating a particular aesthetic system. Carson designers and stitchers then acculturated neotraditional imagery (Catholic saints and rituals) and ethnic emblems (e.g., Native American) to create eclectic embroideries with immediate visual impact and identifiable symbolic content that met tourist demands for exotic yet “culturally expressive” textiles. This paper explores the consequences of the circulation of a cultural artifact predicated on an interpretation of authenticity, created from artifice, subject to scholarly skepticism, and eventually transformed over time to become the basis of an independent artistic trend, or at least a viable colcha embroidery subgroup

Temporal variations in English Populations of a forest insect pest, the green spruce aphid (Elatobium abietinum), associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation and global warming

Based on an exceptionally long modern ecological dataset (41 years), it has been possible to show that warm weather in England associated with a positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index causes the spring migration of the green spruce aphid (Elatobium abietinum), a pest species of spruce trees (Picea) to start earlier, continue for longer and contain more aphids. An upward trend in the NAO index during the period 1966-2006 is associated with an increasing population size of E. abietinum. It is important to understand the mechanisms behind the population fluctuations, because this aphid causes considerable damage to Picea plantations. Present day weather associated fluctuations in forest insect pests may be useful analogues in understanding past pest outbreaks in forests

Chronology, Mythology, Invention: John Bevan Ford’s Maori Cloak Images

The Symposium’s theme linking past actions to future creations implies a linear and sequential correspondence between them - one precedes the other yet offers possibilities to be realized at some future point in time. A different model for time sequencing where past, present and future are conceptually more integrated is the New Zealand Maori view of ancestral presence manifest in the past, but also present in the future. To paraphrase a Maori proverb, “the ancestors stand behind a person, but also stand ahead.” Thus, within this non-European concept of time, the ancestors are simultaneously regarded as both progenitors and future descendants within a time frame conceived as a spiral, which endlessly loops back on itself. With a backdrop of time as a spiraling continuum, this presentation explores the cross-fertilization between Maori weaving heritage and contemporary art making in the two-dimensional pigmented ink drawings of Maori artist, John Bevan Ford, in terms of symbolic, metaphoric and visually mythical language. The inspiration for Ford’s choice of Maori cloaks as the vehicle to graphically represent ancestral lineage as well as sacred, collective and personal history melds ancient mythological themes and cultural attitudes with current innovative, exploratory and creative impulses. Ford’s depiction of sacred cloaks as metaphors for earth and sky aligns with Maori beliefs that cloaks made from plant fiber and feathers embody the gifts of the gods of forest, land and sky. Technically, each object is labor-intensive. Ford’s drawings are composed of meticulous all-over markings of very small lines replicating the texture of fiber, which corresponds to the painstaking process of weaving the body of a cloak through accretion line by line. Both genres share the sacred and genealogical environment of Maori spiritual and aesthetic practices extended to the realm of lived experience with all the variables and contradictions

Colcha Embroidery as Cartography: Mapping Landscapes of Memory and Passage

Stitching is one of the oldest forms or technologies of textile craft – if we regard technology in its elemental sense as artistry, process, invention or method. This presentation explores the notion of embroidered maps as creations of a cartographic visionary imagination. In terms of the Symposium’s theme promoting new links between traditional textile-based concepts and contemporary digital processes, these cartographic embroideries are viewed as compositions of space-time in which landscapes are rendered as illusions of three dimensions (space) with an implied fourth dimension (time). In these pictorial embroideries, time melds with memory in order to transcend the physical division and apportionment of space/place. Regarding the expanse of narrative, the storehouse of memory, “what the map cuts up, the story cuts across” (Certeau 1988). The work of two embroiderers, who use maps as devices of visual narration, is compared and contextualized in terms of a biographic and cultural sense of time. In Tiva Trujillo’s meticulously embroidered map of Colorado’s San Luis Valley composed of multiple spatial perspectives, time assumes a biographically narrative role. This is apparent when Ms. Trujillo nostalgically refers to the concept for this piece as originating in an idyllic “Once Upon a Time…” era of her life. Josephine Lobato has created a series of maplike compositions, which combine toponyms marking places with scenes of cultural enactments. Her embroideries use continuous narration as a mode in which all progressive actions occur simultaneously within one frame. Both artists create static cartographic landscapes enlivened by the imagined dimension of time conflating past, present, and future

\u3ci\u3eTIVAEVAE\u3c/i\u3e: LOCAL AESTHETICS AND COOK ISLANDS QUILTS

What better image for a Cook Islands tivaevae than the vision of this colorful messenger embellishing the fabric\u27s design in a magical moment of trust and oblivion? The sleeping bird brings tidings from Havaiki., the source of myth and memory, and is lured to rest in a field of imaginary flowers a long way from its poetic homeland. The applique or patchwork tivaevae most representative of this genre appear to have been vigorously brushed by the mythical bird\u27s feathers and left shimmering in an array of color. Cook Islands women who have created these patterns speak a language of hue and intensity, of flower and butterfly - not necessarily one shaped by words. Colors resonate while patterns shift from figure to ground in an endless round of interplay between the two. Aesthetically, these visual effects characterize the applique style of tivaevae termed tivaevae manu rendered in florid colors and opulent, rich imagery upon a contrasting ground fabric

A Tale of Two Sisters: Invisibility, Marginalization and Renown in a 20th Century Textile Arts Revitalization Movement in New Mexico

While this presentation does not address oppression in the global textile industry and injustices to leagues of anonymous enslaved women workers, it does raise questions about the vicissitudes of fame and obscurity of two women relative to artistic creation and textile arts revitalization efforts. This is the story of two Varos sisters, who married two Graves brothers, and lived in Carson, New Mexico. In the early 1930s Frances and Sophie Graves with their extended families repaired Spanish colonial textiles for the Santa Fe market. At some point they began to recreate traditional Spanish colonial-type colcha embroideries from recycled materials salvaged from nineteenth-century colcha fragments and market them as authentically colonial. Both sisters continued to create what ultimately became known as Carson colchas, a sub-genre of colcha embroidery within the canon of Southwest Hispanic arts revitalizations, until their deaths. Initially, their early work celebrated romantic visions of the West complete with Indians threatening covered wagons. They eventually chose to reproduce non-anachronistic compositions of sparse fields populated by local fauna and flora. In 1994 a few years before she died, Frances Graves was awarded the highest honor a folk artist can achieve, the National Heritage Fellowship. Articles and books credit both sisters with originating the Carson colcha embroidery style. While their work is often indistinguishable when seen in museum collections, Frances Graves was well-known to outsiders, collectors, scholars, and curators. Although Sophie also pursued colcha embroidery all her life, she was more private, creating pieces primarily for the market in order to support her family. She rarely received the public or critical attention paid to her sister. The disparity between the creative lives of these sisters raises questions about artistic intention and visibility, promotion, arts revitalization dynamics, originality, authenticity, aesthetic judgement, and the allure of replication

The Cultural Politics of Textile Craft Revivals

This proposal is for a joint presentation by professor and graduate student critically appraising the cultural politics of textile revitalization projects. We envision our presentational framework to be modeled on a conversation, which compares the implications of our different experiences as a folklorist doing fieldwork in Colorado\u27s San Luis Valley and a weaver participating in a workshop located in the Bargath district of Orissa, India. One of our main interests, which is conditioned by the assumption that all tradition is change, examines the political basis for such workshops that attempt to revive traditional crafts as economic redevelopment projects. Questions arise for us pertaining to the marketing of cultural identity and ethnic heritage via material culture (specifically weaving and embroidery), gender politics, aesthetic practices, class (or caste) dynamics as well as authenticity, conservatism, cultural transmission, and artistic choice. Above all, we query the very essence of craft revitalization movements in terms of individual creativity relative to an agenda of reviving or transforming a waning or moribund craft practice for socio-economic purposes. Our experiences initially converge when we discuss how ethnoaesthetic criteria operate in these workshop situations, and the relative degrees of local women\u27s autonomy (socially, politically, and economically). We diverge when it comes to the successes and longevity of projects (e.g., why some externally funded textile revitalizations take hold and endure while others disappear), the subversive tactics or complicity of women artisans vis-‡-vis goals of external funding organizations, plus the aesthetic and economic viability of these textile craft revitalizations in light of political authority, social structure, and power

Colcha embroidery along the northern Rio Grande: The aesthetics of cultural inversion in San Luis, Colorado

During the Spanish colonial era, colchas referred to heavily embroidered wool bedspreads, wall hangings or altar cloths. Contemporary colchas are smaller-scale densely embroidered pictures often depicting genre scenes inspired by autobiographical elements, remembrances from the community\u27s collective past, cultural enactments, and religious themes. The original concept of pictorial narrative colchas evolved out of economically-based stitching workshops which were sponsored by outside entrepreneurial interests. In order to investigate issues of colonial hegemonic strategies and art historical continuity and authenticity, the first part of this discussion outlines colcha\u27s historical background from the Spanish colonial era to mid-twentieth century periods of renascence and transformation. The second part concerns the role of colcha embroidery within the framework of traditional and contemporary elements in San Luis culture. By analyzing iconography, by delineating the complexities of polymorphous artistic and cultural self-representation (as concretized within colcha-making), this dissertation explains how the creative and experiential activities surrounding the colcha artifact become active and substantive forces within the present sociocultural construct. The colcha art form, itself, is a key to understanding the type and extent of outside influence, and to gauge the integrative process of cultural inversion by which the San Luis stitchers absorb, internalize, or even subvert, elements emanating from the action of external forces upon their society. The idea of cultural inversion as applied to colcha embroidery intensifies the character of its multivalency so that cultural and aesthetic autonomy, self-representation, and outsider influences are all manifest in this particular interpretation of the art object