Skip to main content
Advanced Search
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.403.1, Connecticut Historical S ...
Aid to Artisans Event
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.403.1, Connecticut Historical Society, Copyright Undetermined

Aid to Artisans Event

Subject (Tibetan)
Subject (Tibetan)
Subject (Tibetan)
Subject (Tibetan, died 2006)
Subject (Laotian)
DateNovember 1999
Mediumpositive color film slides
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.403.1-.10
Description2015.196.403.1: Image of two Tibetan artists attending the Aids to Artisans event. Weaver Tsultim Lama (left) and weaver Tsering Yangzom (right) are standing in front of artwork made by Connecticut Tibetan artists.

2015.196.403.2: Image of two Tibetan artists attending the Aids to Artisans event, woodcarver Ngawang Choedar (left) and painter Kalsang Jorden (right). These art works are in the CHS collection.

2015.196.403.3: Image of woven Tibetan textiles: tablet-woven belts made by Tsering Yangzom (left and center) and an embroidered bag made by Damdul from wool cloth woven by Tsering Yangzom (right). Some of these art works are in the CHS collection.

2015.196.403.4: Image of a seat cover woven by Tsultim Lama.

2015.196.403.5-.6: Images of Lao artist Manola Sidara discussing her folded paper ornaments called pah khuane.

2015.196.403.7-.8: Images of pah khuane made by Manola Sidara.

2015.196.403.9-.10: Images of Hmong embroidery in cross stitch made by Yee and Vang Xiong.
NotesSubject Note: On November 6, 1999, CCHAP hosted Aid to Artisans (ATA), a Farmington-based arts marketing organization, at a gathering of Connecticut artists working in folk and traditional art forms. The goal of the event was to introduce ATA to 20+ folk and traditional artists working in Connecticut and with CCHAP in various communities across the state. Other goals were to increase awareness and appreciation of hand crafted ethnic and heritage art forms and to provide an opportunity for artisans to develop strategies for marketing, promotion, and cultural tourism. The event was hoped to be a way to support the planning and implementation of a heritage artisans enterprise development project for and with Connecticut traditional artists/craftspeople. Activities held during the day included informal, roundtable discussions among all the artists; an exhibition of artists’ work in ICR’s gallery; professional photography of the artists’ work by Phillip Fortune; and a pot luck supper. The collaboration with ATA did not develop into a larger marketing project, largely because the artists could not commit to full-time work creating and producing enough items for the scale of sales that ATA required – most folk and traditional artists work other jobs and typically do not have enough resources for uncertain arts production. Also, the design concepts required by ATA’s markets were non-traditional, whereas CCHAP’s focus is on sustaining traditional art forms. However, introducing concepts of marketing and presentation of work were very valuable to the artists, and the inspiration for the event led to CCHAP’s Sewing Circle Project and its strong marketing component, some years later.


Biographical Note: Aid to Artisans began its work in 1976 to strengthen and develop craft based enterprises as a vital means to creating jobs, increasing incomes, and preserving the traditions of artisans worldwide. These efforts proved economically viable not only for the artisans but also for national economies. In 1986, ATA moved to Farmington, Connecticut led by Clare Brett Smith. In the 1990s, ATA began to take advantage of lessons learned from their work overseas to assist artisans in the U.S. to participate more successfully in the U.S. marketplace. The organization moved to Washington, DC and later joined CreativeLearning.org as a program division.


Biographical Note: Manola Sidara is a Lao dance educator and community activist whose life has been devoted to serving her community. Born in 1969 in Vientiane, Laos, Manola joined the National Dance School at the age of five, along with her sister. After her family fled Laos, she continued learning traditional dance with master dancer Sone Norasing in Colorado until moving to Connecticut in 1989. From her grandmother and aunts Manola learned to make pah khuane, the ornaments of bamboo leaves and flowers which are part of every Lao ceremony and celebration in both temple and home. She worked as a wedding consultant, organizing all the arrangements for traditional Lao weddings, and became known as a brilliant cake decorator. Manola helped to produce the exhibit The Ties That Bind: Southeast Asian Wedding Traditions at the Institute for Community Research (ICR) in 1995. In 1999-2000 she served as the Bilingual Program Assistant at Garfield School in Bridgeport, teaching ESOL, computers, and cultural awareness to elementary school children both Lao and Latino. Manola taught traditional dance at the Lao Saturday School in New Britain from its inception. With her high-school age students from the school, Manola formed the Lao Narthasin Dance Troupe, instructing the members in classical Laotian dance, folk dances of different ethnic groups in Laos, and traditional values and manners such as respectful behavior, honoring elders, and service to the family and community. The dance group, which has performed throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island at cultural centers and Lao temples, now includes a third generation of dancers. From 1998 to 2001 Manola was the New Britain Coordinator for the Urban Artists Initiative, a statewide training program run by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and the Institute for Community Research. In 2001 Manola received an award from the Lao Association of CT at New Year for her work with the Lao Narthasin dancers and was selected as a CT Commission on the Arts Master Teaching Artist. In 2011 Manola coordinated the community oral history project After the Trauma: Holocaust Survivors and Laotian Refugees Confront the Past, displayed at the University of Hartford. Manola is also known as a master chef at East West Grille, her award-winning and beloved Lao-Thai restaurant on New Park Avenue in Hartford from 2000-2019, and the East-West Grille Food Truck. Manola is very active in assisting the Lao Temple in Morris, CT, with cultural programming, social service, and providing food for the monks and their ceremonies. For Manola, her tireless activities in dance, education, ceremonial decorations, and cooking all promote wellness, spirituality, bonding, and healing.

2015.196.403/ Subject Note: Pah Khuane - Originally made from banana leaves, these ornamental sculptures are used in Lao ceremonies and celebrations as a focal point for gathering people together and encouraging health and healing. They can also be an altar piece for a wedding ceremony, or given to people coming out of hospital to replenish their spirit. Khuan means spirit, and the decorations carry strings which are symbols of bonding and holding of the spirit, as also seen in Lao Buddhist ceremonies when the monk will tie a string around someone’s wrist as a sign of spiritual connection and well-being.


Biographical Note: Tsering Yangzom weaves belts with traditional designs on her backstrap loom as well as wool material for blankets, aprons, jackets, and bags on a larger loom. Her skill, learned from her mother in a remote village on the Nepal/Tibet border, is one traditionally shared by rural women. When she was seven years old Tsering Yangzom's family fled Tibet, settling in a remote Nepali village near the Tibetan border. It was difficult for Tibetan exiles to make a new life there as they were foreigners, bringing few possessions and little money with them. One way for families to generate both income and necessary household furnishings was to utilize women's traditional weaving skills. Tseyang's mother made blankets, bags, warm coats - chupa, and married women's traditional striped aprons - pang-dhen out of cloth she wove from dyed sheeps' wool, as well as small carpets and seat coverings. These were also sold in shops in the town.

Tseyang and her younger sister were taught to card and spin yarn from sheeps' wool, and weave it into cloth, a common practice for Tibetan women. In school all children learned to make the patterned belts that Tibetans tie around their chupa. Later Tseyang worked in a factory handweaving Tibetan carpets as this industry grew in Nepal.

Tseyang brought to her new home in Old Saybrook the traditional narrow loom she used to weave belts, although she could not bring with her the larger loom for cloth. Belts are made on a thak-ti, a tension loom which uses a process called tablet weaving to create quite complex designs on belts up to six inches wide. Pierced thin leather cards, or tablets, are strung side by side onto individual vertical warp threads. Tension on the warp threads is provided as the weaver pulls against the threads attached to a backstrap tied around her waist. As she pulls, she rotates all the tablets at once, an action which moves some warp threads up and some down to create a space between them, in the manner of a heddle. She passes a thread horizontally through this space in a weaving motion, pushes it down tightly with a wooden beater, then rotates the tablets again to lift another set of warp threads before weaving again. The pattern is determined by the number of tablets strung onto certain colors of warp threads. In another photograph of this loom Tseyang has seven tablets strung with dark threads on either side, with twenty-four white thread cards between them, to make a simple two-color belt. Tseyang moved to Torrington, Connecticut then New York City to live.

"When we took refuge from Tibet and had no farms to grow things, to make a living, to survive we had to do this kind of thing...there was nothing we could do but making and selling cloth, blankets, bags, belts...the first thing is to keep the traditions of our culture. Second thing is when we lost our country Tibet, when the Chinese took over, there's no way to do other business. To survive we did this...the same things in Nepal as Tibet."

Biographical Note: Tsultim Lama is a skilled designer and weaver of carpets in the traditional Tibetan hand-knotted style, able to warp a carpet loom, plan the design, select wool, hand weave and cut the rug, take it off the loom and finish the edges. Born in Nepal to Tibetan parents who fled from the Chinese occupation of Tibet, Tsultrim learned to weave traditional hand-knotted wool carpets at the Tashiling Tibetan Handicrafts Center in Pokhara, Nepal. She became the head weaver there, also creating the designs for both traditional Tibetan-style rugs and more modern carpets that were exported to Europe and the US. She came to Boston through the 1992 lottery that resettled 1000 Tibetans from India and Nepal in the US, and then moved to the growing Tibetan community in Old Saybrook, Connecticut where she still lives. She has given many demonstrations of weaving at events including the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, a women’s creativity conference at Quinnipiac College in Hamden CT, and at a Tibetan arts festival held in conjunction with the University of Connecticut’s Benton Museum. In addition to her weaving skills, Tsultim and her husband own and manage two restaurants in Connecticut.


Biographical Note: Vang Xiong was a Hmong flute player and embroidery artist of great skill who lived in Tariffville, Connecticut with her family. She was the sister of Boua Tong Xiong. After 2000 she moved to California with some of her family. Contemporary Hmong decorative textiles (or “paj ndau”) include two major forms: applique and stitchery. The applique includes double applique and reverse applique; the stitchery is also of a variety of forms: cross-stitching and embroidery add texture and dimension to most pieces. One of her embroideries is in the CHS collection, collected by Lynne Williamson.

Biographical Note: Yee Xiong was a Hmong embroidery artist of great skill who lived in Tariffville, Connecticut with her family. She was the sister of Boua Tong Xiong. After 2000 she moved to California with some of her family. Contemporary Hmong decorative textiles (or “paj ndau”) include two major forms: applique and stitchery. The applique includes double applique and reverse applique; the stitchery is also of a variety of forms: cross-stitching and embroidery add texture and dimension to most pieces. Some of her embroideries are in the CHS collection, collected by Lynne Williamson.


Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive related 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
    eMuseum
    Copyright © eMuseum