We arrived safely in Nha Trang all of which i will fill you in on in a few days. In the meantime I thought that this place deserved a post all of its own.
Right next door to our hotel is an the XQ Arts and Crafts gallery, we did not go in for a couple of days as they seemed to be having work done. However when we did eventually wander in, what a surprise this place was totally amazing.
Vietnamese hand embroidery is a 700-year-old tradition, which is passed on from generation to generation. Really tiny, weeny threads are used to create brightly coloured pictures on cloth, its totally out of the world. It is a popular hobbie for girls in high school, and as a part of Vietnamese culture; traditionally, girls are expected to know how to decorate pillowcases, curtains and table clothes with hand embroidery. Since the 1960s, hand embroidery in Vietnam has been raised to the level of an art, and quite rightly too. Many large pictures in different sizes, some as large as 2.5 × 2 yards, have been made. Popular topics include Vietnamese history, landscapes, animals, flowers, and religious scenes. Some of the pictures we saw in the gallery took up to 9 months to make.
In hand embroidery, the artist, patiently, skillfully and carefully selects each tiny thread with different colours and shades. In some pictures, she may use up to 500 different colours and threads spread on to a huge cloth material to make a piece of art.
The founders of the gallery are married couple artist, artisan Vo Van Quan and Hoang Le Xuan. Mrs.Hoang Le Xuan was descended from Hue family inherited all of high precise skill of embroidery. Mr.Vo Van Quan, an artist with a creative brain, together they created a new interest for Vietnamese embroidery.
The process starts as below (top left to bottom right) with a drawing. A type of tracing paper is then placed over the drawing a hundreds of tiny holes are made following the lines of the drawing. This is then placed over black cloth and a powder is brushed over it, the powder falls through the holes and creates the outline of the picture on the cloth. Then the hand embroidery can begin.
Some of these pieces we saw are totally incredible. I don't think Craig was enamoured with going in this place, but two days later he is still talking about it. It certainly changed some of the preconceptions i had about embroidery, the level of detail in these pieces is just amazing. If i owned just one of these peices I would be a very happy girl, unfortunately they just wont fit in the backpack!
2 comments:
That is amazing
I know, the level of detail ís totally mind boggling. Some of the pictures look like you could reach into them. And the peacock feathers are something else! - Nat
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