“I served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Thailand in 1968-70 living in Nan Province which shares its eastern border with Sayabouri. I traveled around northern Thailand recording the Iu Mien embroidery motifs that were common at that time and which were recorded in my book, Yao Design in Northern Thailand (published in 1970 and 1981 by the Siam Society, Bangkok). I especially spent time in Pak Klang, Amphur Pua, Nan Province where there was a refugee camp for Iu Mien and Hmong who had fled from Sayabouri which was a war zone and unsafe for them.”

With the Iu Mien, I enlisted three women to create samplers that contained all the motifs they could remember from their personal motif “vocabulary”. The women took three approaches:

1. One filled her panel with only a few designs. Did she then give up or was that the extent of her “vocabulary”?

2. A second chose only a few motifs but did each in a variety of versions illustrating how Iu Mien women often play with the deep creativity of varying a motif to do it in differing ways.

3. The third set in two panels shows the huge variety in the motif “vocabulary” of a master artisan. I hope these two panels can be used by Iu Mien women in the future to see what they themselves still produce, what they might remember from mothers or grandmothers and which forgotten ones they might like to revive.

“I visited the camp often and ordered Iu Mien embroidery items for an organization in Chiengmai that was promoting Hilltribe handicrafts. I hosted the first Hmong batik artist to go to that organization and get trained in developing Hmong batik products and take the knowledge back to her village.”

Pictured above: Hmong artisan, who made the two pieces, and Jackie Butler-Diaz circa 1969. Photo credit: Rob Burrows