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Wednesday, March 23, 2005 Colcha embroidery is a spiritual meditationTomé Kathleen Lerner could use the colcha embroidery stitch — an old-fashioned technique she's spent the last decade perfecting — to craft a tablecloth and decorate it with a vibrant floral pattern. But she'd really rather not. The Peralta Elementary School third-grade teacher would much prefer that her pieces reflect something more substantial than roses and daisies. Lerner's favorite colcha subjects are saints because, with every batch of yarn she hand-dyes, with every stitch she makes, she feels something intense.
Lerner, a Taos native who now resides in Albuquerque, learned the colcha technique — which was once popular because it is fast and economical — in 1993 so she could make a special gift for her art collector mother. "She had almost every type of Spanish Colonial art form, but she didn't have any colchas, and she wanted one. We'd been looking, but they were really scarce because nobody was really making them," Lerner recalls. "She'd been looking for several years, and I said, 'Well, if you find a workshop, I'll learn how to do it, and I'll make you one.' And that's how I got started." It's now 12 years — and umpteen Spanish Market and State Fair art awards — later and Lerner is still stitching. "I just finished my 201st (piece)," Lerner says. "Each one is real special or major." The teacher recalls an altar screen as one of the largest and most ambitious projects she's tackled. "It was unbelievable. I thought, if anyone knew how much time I put into this and how overwhelming it is, they would know I was insane," she says, laughing. Although she says colcha is easier to learn and less labor intensive than traditional embroidery — she's even taught her third-graders the stitch — the creation process is usually a lengthy one because Lerner occasionally spins her own yarn and she always dyes it herself. That involves soaking yarn in water with, for instance, walnut hulls. That particular concoction colors the yarn a shade of brown that becomes less intense with every new batch placed in it. Because of the time involved, Lerner prices a typical piece — which is roughly 18 inches by 18 inches — at a few hundred dollars, and she has no trouble selling them. (Most people buy them as wall-hangings.) She's actually sold a good part of the 201 she's made and, at times, she has nothing left in her inventory to enter in art shows. She says she's been promising her son that she would make a San Pasqual colcha for him and, every time she makes one and takes it to a show, it sells before he gets his hands on it. "The saints," she says, "you make them, and you sell them immediately." Selling work on a consistent basis seems like it would be any artist's dream, but Lerner says it's hard to keep up with demand. "I try not to (go to shows) just for that reason, and I don't do commission, because, if I did, it would really set me behind. If I can't even do one for my son..." she says. But there's still something about colcha and the art of drawing with yarn the images of saints that Lerner loves. "I think the reason I like this is the spiritualness of it," she says. In other words, don't expect tablecloths out of Lerner any time soon.
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