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Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.1.1, Connecticut Historical Soc…
Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, Year 1 and 3
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.1.1, Connecticut Historical Society, Copyright Undetermined

Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, Year 1 and 3

SubjectPortrait of Blia Vang Hmong
SubjectPortrait of Vang Xiong Hmong
SubjectPortrait of Josephine MacNamara
SubjectPortrait of Sheila Hogg
SubjectPortrait of Anita Smiley
Date1998-2001
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
DescriptionPhotographs show artists, art works, and public events from the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Years 1 and 3.


(.1-.2) The event pictured was a required public presentation of the Year 1 apprenticeship team in Hmong textile arts with teaching artist partners Blia Vang and Vang Xiong.
2015.196.1.1: Photo of Blia Vang (left) and Vang Xiong (right) holding Hmong embroidery
2015.196.1.2: Photo of Hmong embroidery made by Vang Xiong


2015.196.1.3: Photo of Josephine McNamara, mentor (right) and Sheila Hogg, apprentice (center) singing Irish ballads at the public presentation in Providence RI of their Year 1 Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program work.


2015.196.1.4-.8: Weavings made by Seija Floderus, teacher of Finnish weaving to apprentices from the Finnish American Heritage Society, from 2000-2003.
2015.196.1.4: Photo of Finnish weaving
2015.196.1.5: Photo of Seija Floderus standing beside Finnish weaving she made
2015.196.1.6: Photo of Seija Floderus standing behind Finnish weaving she made
2015.196.1.7: Photo of Finnish weaving made by Seija Floderus
2015.196.1.8: Photo of Finnish weaving made by Seija Floderus
Object number2015.196.1.1-.8
CopyrightIn Copyright
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.


Biographical Note for 2015.196.1.1-.2: Blia Vang emigrated to the US from the hills of Laos in 1979. Highland Laos was the home of thousands of Hmong people who are believed to have come from the Southern provinces of China several generations ago. When Laos was invaded by communist troops in 1975, thousands of Hmong were forced to flee. Blia Vang, her husband Pa Koua Vang, and their children were amongst those who survived under precarious conditions in the jungle, and eventually crossed the Mekong River to find sanctuary in Thai refugee camps. The Hmong were resettled in a number of countries, including the United States, in the late 1970s and 1980s. About 4,000 Hmong were resettled in Rhode Island, mostly in Providence; the number has decreased because of secondary immigration to other states particularly California, North Carolina, and Minnesota. Blia Vang learned Hmong traditional textile arts form her mother and other women in her family, starting when she was eight years old. She is the bearer of a traditional living culture that carries with it centuries of knowledge. The contemporary 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.

The Hmong have a number of sub-cultural groups; one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Blue Hmong is their custom of batiking cloth with blue indigo. One specific kind of textile that the Hmong have become known for are the paj ndau “story cloths”. These are a comparatively new genre first made in the Thai refugee camps around 1975. In these embroidered pieces, direct figurative references are made to folk tales, myths, personal family stories and scenes of village life. These story cloths also depict the turbulence and hardships of the war years in Southeast Asia. Hmong textile works also include many references to the natural world, to the plants and animals, which are native to the hills of Laos.” (Winifred Lambrecht, Ph.D (CCHAP project partner); July 2006)


Biographical Note for 2015.196.1.1-.2: 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.

Subject Note: The Hmong community in Connecticut, around 300 in number, is based mostly in the Enfield and Manchester areas. They work in factories and service occupations, as well as skilled manufacturing, often in aerospace industries. The Hmong came to the United States as refugees from the Indochina wars in the 1970s after the Communist takeover of Laos, sponsored by the American government because many Hmong assisted the military and the CIA. At that time the Hmong were persecuted in Laos, and this still continues today with considerable fighting going on. The Hmong are an ethnic group who migrated to Laos where many still live today. There are also Hmong communities in northern Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, and China (where they are called Miao).

Connecticut Hmong people are both traditional and contemporary. Older women used to make the gorgeous applique and embroidery work known as paj ntaub and paj ndau (story cloths), and they still create traditional costumes for women and men, albeit with modern shortcuts (traditional dyeing techniques are replaced by printed cloth, for instance). Men who are traditional community leaders, such as Boua Tong Xiong, still perform wedding and funeral rituals as well as conflict resolution according to time-honored practices. Hmong traditions practiced in Connecticut include embroidery and story cloths, funeral and wedding songs, music on the bamboo instrument qeej, ballads and courtship songs kwv ntxhiaj, and social dancing. Hmong leaders started the Hmong Foundation of Connecticut as a way to keep the community together and continue to provide many kinds of needed assistance. The Foundation, which is led by a Board of Directors, is open to all Hmong living in the state. Members provide services such as translation, transportation, family relocation to Connecticut, assistance with finding jobs and access to health care, Hmong language classes, and traditional Hmong advising and dispute resolution. The Hmong Foundation of Connecticut became a separate organization in 1996 after the Connecticut Federation of Refugee Assistance Agencies, an umbrella service group, disbanded. The group sponsors Hmong New Year in November and a celebration for Hmong high school graduates in June.

The Hmong have a number of sub-cultural groups; one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Blue Hmong is their custom of batiking cloth with blue indigo. One specific kind of textile that the Hmong have become known for are the paj ndau “story cloths”. These are a comparatively new genre first made in the Thai refugee camps around 1975. In these embroidered pieces, direct figurative references are made to folk tales, myths, personal family stories and scenes of village life. These story cloths also depict the turbulence and hardships of the war years in Southeast Asia. Hmong textile works also include many references to the natural world, to the plants and animals, which are native to the hills of Laos. (Winifred Lambrecht, Ph.D (CCHAP project partner); July 2006)
https://chs.org/connecticut-cultural-heritage-arts-program/chap-communities/hmong/


Biographical Note for 2015.196.1.3: Josephine McNamara sings pure unaccompanied ballads in the “Old Style” (sean nos) which she learned from her family, especially her father, and other singers in both Ireland and America. Through everyday songs she heard around the house and those she picked up at local ceilidhs Josephine has built up a large repertoire of sean nos songs in English. In 1958, 1959, and 1961 she won the prestigious All-Ireland championship contest for singing. She left the family farm in County Leitrim to move to the United States in 1963, returning to singing and set dancing after raising her family. Her recordings include Leitrim’s Hidden Treasure: The McNamara Family, and Sounds Like Home: Connecticut Traditional Musicians, a CCHAP co-production with WNPR. Apprentice Sheila Hogg studied with sean nos singer Bridget Fitzgerald and also with Josephine, and learned some of Josephine's repertoire and her particular ornamentation in the apprenticeship. (Source: https://www.itma.ie/michaelmcnamara/explore/alll-performers/josephine-mcnamara
and http://www.irisharts.org.uk/project_lf.html)


Subject Note for 2015.196.1.4-.8: Several members of the Finnish American Heritage Society in Canterbury CT participated in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program from 2000-2003, learning Nordic weaving styles and generating a great interest in weaving in this community which has continued with new apprenticeships in 2022-2024. Experienced weaver Seija Floderus, who had learned household weaving in Finland from her mother and her aunt, taught some basic Finnish techniques such as poppana, kuultokudos with linen, for traditional rag rugs and table runners, as well as how to warp the different looms in the first year. In the second year, Seija continued with teaching basics such as warping the loom, and also introduced the more advanced technique of ryijy, a difficult style of thick-pile tapestry weaving technique using linen and wool. In the third year, seven apprentices continued working with ryjiy. Apprentice Val Galasyn created a beautiful ryjiy weaving depicting the Finnish flag and the year of the country’s independence, 1917. Several looms including Seija’s husband’s grandmother’s 100-year-old Swedish loom, were donated to FAHS and restored and repaired by men of the Finnish American Heritage Society. The apprentices presented their work and the looms at several open house programs held at FAHS Finn Hall during the three years of their early apprenticeship training. The students produced so many weavings that they sold them to raise income for the Society, in addition to using the linen towels in their family saunas. The weaving classes have involved many in the community through donation and renovation of the looms, production of the woven pieces, and presentation of the project through the Society’s newsletter and special events. This apprenticeship has also been presented in four CCHAP exhibits, in 2010, 2016, 2017, and 2018, and has continued with a weaving group that meets regularly at the Finn Hall as of 2025.
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Year 3 Apprentices: Anita Smiley, Eva Bean, Ritva Langlois, Aili Galasyn, Mary Ellen and Robert Harmon, Beth Hettinger, Marcia Huhta.


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.
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