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Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.257.14, Connecticut Historical ...
Southern New England Apprenticeship Program Year 18 - Tentso Sichoe and Kunga Choekyi
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.257.14, Connecticut Historical Society, Copyright Undetermined

Southern New England Apprenticeship Program Year 18 - Tentso Sichoe and Kunga Choekyi

Subject (Tibetan)
Subject (Tibetan, born 1959)
Subject (Tibetan, born 1948)
Date2016 July 6
Mediumborn digital images
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.257.1-.24
DescriptionPhotographs of a Tibetan weaving teaching session of the Southern New England Apprenticeship Program Year 18, with teaching artist Tentso Sichoe and weaver Kunga Choekyi.

2015.196.257.1: born digital image showing Kunga Choekyi and Jampa Tsondue unrolling a carpet made by Kunga in Nepal

2015.196.257.2-.4: born digital images showing a carpet made by Kunga in Nepal

2015.196.257.5: born digital image showing close view of blue and white carpet, made by Kunga in Nepal

2015.196.257.6-.9: born digital images showing close view of a thick pile carpet made by Kunga in Nepal, which would be used as a bed or couch cover

2015.196.257.10-.11: born digital images showing a peach, pastel blue, and yellow carpet, made by Kunga in Nepal

2015.196.257.12-.13: born digital images showing Tentso Sichoe in her home, with carpets she wove in Nepal

2015.196.257.14: born digital image showing full view of one of Tentso's carpets

2015.196.257.15: born digital image showing Tentso Sichoe in her home, with carpets she wove in Nepal

2015.196.257.16: born digital image showing Tentso's loom and weaving tools, in her home

2015.196.257.17-.21: born digital images showing Tentso weaving at her loom

2015.196.257.22-.23: born digital images showing Kunga Choekyi and Tentso Sichoe working at the loom, in Tentso's home

2015.196.257.24: born digital image showing Tentso weaving at her loom
NotesSubject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities, and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.


Subject Note: Tibetans and Nepalese in the Himalayan region have been weaving carpets for generations, using the rugs as seat coverings and warm bedding in homes and monasteries. Traditional designs reflect the influence of Buddhism, depicting animals from stories and monastic texts, and geometric motifs that often symbolize concepts such as the endless knot. The process of rug weaving begins with caring for herds of sheep and shearing their wool, cleaning and processing it, then spinning and dyeing the wool. Weaving is done by hand on an upright wooden loom, then the finished carpet is trimmed and stretched.


Biographical Note: In 1959, Tentso Sichoe fled from Tibet with her family during the Tibetan conflict with China. Tentso settled with her family in the Mustang district of Nepal, close to the northern border with Tibet. Tentso learned the process of rug weaving starting in 1975 at a Tibetan handicraft center in the Namgyaling Tibetan refugee camp in Mustang, Nepal. Her primary teacher was a skilled craftsman from Tibet. Weaving was a source of livelihood for Tibetan refugees, like Tentso, who had been displaced from their homes inside Tibet after the political turmoil in 1959. Tentso and her husband both worked in the rug weaving industry as weavers for about 15 years until 1990. In 2003, Tentso immigrated to the United States and currently lives with her daughter and family in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Tentso weaves using the unique Tibetan knotting method, which is known to be highly effective in creating durable rugs since each warp is knotted individually when weaving.

Tentso’s rugs were displayed in the exhibits "Connecticut Traditional Artists and Their Communities: An Exhibit Celebrating 25 Years of the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program" (2016) and "Passing It On: Traditional Arts Apprenticeships" (2018). She worked with Tibetan weaver Kunga Choekyi in Year 18 to set up a loom and weave a carpet, and taught her daughter Tseyang Lhamo to weave in Year 19 of the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. In addition to the techniques of weaving a carpet, Tentso taught her about other essential elements of weaving such as wool herding, spinning of yarn, trimming and stretching of the woven rug. She and Tseyang Lhamo donated the rug they made during the apprenticeship to CHS (2018.67.0).


Biographical Note: Born in Nepal, Kunga Choekyi is a skilled embroiderer and weaver of Tibetan carpets. In 1998, along with her three children, she joined her husband Jampa Tsondue in Old Saybrook where he had immigrated under the lottery system in 1992. In addition to her arts, K.C. as she is known, has developed a successful business as a professional manicurist in Old Saybrook.


Additional audio, video, and/or photographic materials exist in the archive relating to these artists.


Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
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