Untitled

The present work is a colcha embroidery, a technique dating to Spanish Colonial times, traditionally made of wool woven over cotton or linen fabric. Taught by her neighbor Jesusita Perrault in New Mexico, Rebecca Salsbury James utilized this technique to create charming scenes often infused with ecclesiastical imagery, such as the present work. Of her embroideries, James wrote: "Talking about embroidery with you got me thinking about all the arts. In all of them the hard thing to do is transcend the tools and techniques...In embroidery it is a stiff little piece of shining steel and a thin thread. Certainly all small tools, but what an enormous expression they can make if the eye is true, the hand is diligent, the mind disciplined, the spirit aware. Tools and techniques are not enough. Out of their use a third thing must emerge—another language." (as quoted in The Colcha Stitch: Embroidery by Rebecca James, exhibition catalogue, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1963, p. 18)

The present work was initially owned by Ethel Schwabacher, an important abstract painter based in New York City.