THE THINGS WE DO...
by Orysia Paszczak Tracz
Unraveling embroidery
CONCLUSION
Ukrainian culture is a living thing, and the folk arts, music, dance, architecture, etc., have inspired many contemporary artists. But these artists two are inspired by the folk do not say that what they are creating is folk. Their works are original. More power to these talented people. It is remarkable that Ukrainian artists around the world, even many generations removed from Ukraine, are still drawn to that "old Ukrainian stuff' as a basis for their new works.
In the realm of pysanky, Tania Osadca and Nadia Nowytski (among many) do amazing original work based on folk motifs. The late Oksana Liaturynska was especially talented in this. In weaving, Karolina Romanyk and Linda Ewasiuk Edgar leap from folk to originality. Potters such as Canadians Audrey Uzwyshyn, Ted Diakiw and Christina Sikorsky do the same.
To cite just one example from Ukraine, the graduates of the Kosiv College of Folk Arts are amazingly talented in capturing the folk in their own very contemporary works. Seeing their graduate theses on exhibit in Lviv was one of the highlights of my recent trip to Ukraine. One non-Ukrainian member of our tour commented that, in all her travels around the world, she had never seen art created and exhibited so elegantly and with such obvious love and respect.
If only Xenia Kolotylo had subtitled her book "Ukrainian Embroidery Designs in My Collection" or "Embroidery Designs I Love" - and then published them as is. ... But she altered folk embroidery without mentioning that she did so, then called these her own designs and published them as her own, "Color and Fantasy: Patterns of Xenia Kolotylo; Rozmayittia Barv i Fantazii: Uzory Ksenii Kolotylo."
"Fantaziia" is right. I wonder what the editors and publishers at Mystetsvo in Kyiv were thinking. Was it the sheer amount of embroidery that impressed them, or that the author was outside Ukraine and still preserving the art? How could they not know of the wealth of Ukrainian embroidery around the world, about the abundance of books and magazines with embroidery designs and about the stitches themselves? Was there no one familiar with Hutsul designs and colors to question what was presented?
What disturbs and worries me is that now this book is popular, it is out there with people reproducing these changed designs, thinking they are authentic. I wonder if someone else will now come along altering these into other even more "new folk" patterns.
In her introduction, Ms. Kolotylo writes: "... As the years flew by, I grew still more dedicated to the art of embroidery and put all my efforts into designing new patterns for the traditional Hutsul ornaments. I turned my house into a veritable museum of the Hutsul folk art. There are some 600 items in my collection of Hutsul embroidery, both authentic and modern. Many of them I did myself." But in looking at the color plates, the reader has no way of knowing which are authentic, and which the author "did herself."
Usually, in a collection of designs there are notes, with information about the source, the date, village, embroiderer, museum collection, etc., about each of the pieces reproduced. Often the compiler lists the DMC thread colors to be used for each design - so very important in preserving authenticity. A red-orange-yellow-green combination is completely different in each piece of embroidery, depending upon region, based on local shades and tones of these basic colors. In Ms. Kolotylo's album there is not a word about village or region, not a mention of thread color number, nor type of stitch (some of them, in fact, were originally nyz and not crosstitch).
When Ivanna Zelska published her collection "Ukrainska Vyshyvka: Naikonechnishi Informatsiyi (Ukrainian Embroidery: the most basic information, Winnipeg, 1981), she credited three Ukrainian Canadian pioneer women who preserved their regional embroidery designs. Also, in reproducing designs by theme (regional, men's, children's, church, etc.), she noted the region of each pattern, as well as the thread color scheme.
Maria Kutsenko of Australia published "Ukrainian Embroideries" (Northcote: Spectrum Pub., 1977), a large volume of her embroidery designs from central and eastern Ukraine that she reproduced (often from memory or from scraps). Again, the color plates contain regional and color information.
In her new book "Mystetstvo Ukrainskoyi Vyshyvky: Tekhnika i Tekhnolohiya" (The Art of Ukrainian Embroidery: Techniques and Technology. Lviv: Misioner, 1996), Olena Kulynych-Stakhurska shows how she reproduced long-forgotten embroidery stitches. But she always mentions the source of each stitch and design, even when she applies these designs to new pieces.
Years earlier, Tania Diakiw-O'Neill published her remarkable "Ukrainian Embroidery Stitches" (Mountaintop, Pa.: STO, 1984); she also recreated some stitches from antique pieces. In publishing the stitch techniques and designs, she did not call them her own.
Anna Kulchytska of Chicago recently published "Ornament Trypilskoi Kultury i Ukrainska Vvshyvka XX St. (Ornament of the Trypillian Culture and Ukrainian Embroidery of the 20th Century, Lviv: Natsionalna Akademiya Nauk Ukrainy, 1995). Some Paleolithic motifs are included along with the Neolithic (Trypillian). To me, these Paleolithic designs the author simplified into embroidery look just like the Bukovynian "kryvulky." She reproduces both traditional embroidery designs, as well as her own original ones, with the caption: "Contemporary embroidery designs, developed by the author on the basis of prehistoric ornaments." The distinction is clearly noted.
Stefania Kulchytska is another embroiderer who designed her own motifs based on folk embroidery. But in her work one does not sense any disharmony of ornament. Whether in true reproduction of the folk design, or in innovative adaptation of a folk motif, Ms. Kulchytska had that special touch.
Hanna Savchuk, the compiler of the book on Kulchytska's work (Kyiv: Mystetstvo, 1987), writes in the introduction: "... [Kulchytska] draws from the wellspring of folk art, but interprets them in her own way: enlarging or diminishing, simplifying, changing the rhythm, the combination, the placement." But even though the reader knows these are adapted folk designs, there is no sense that Ms. Kulchytska is announcing to the world that these are "her own." (One design on page 9-10 of Ms. Kulchytska's book appears twice in Ms. Kolotylo's book [p. 110, 112] and is the design from the set of color plates my mother brought from the DP camp in Germany to the U.S., where it was published in the late 1940s. A "servetka" with that same design was in our living room in New Jersey from 1949 on.)
Why bother criticizing the work of a person who has dedicated her life to embroidery? Why not just let it be?
Because Ukrainian embroidery is more than pretty designs and colors. Originally, the geometric motifs had deep symbolic meanings. These ritual ornaments evolved into what to most of us is either a simple or intricate geometric pattern. But that symbolism remains within the design, making it so special, such a document to our antiquity and the beliefs of our ancestors. It is our cultural heritage.
To alter that just for the sake of change or to claim it as one's own destroys that special symbolism. To her credit, over her lifetime the author has collected and created a monumental amount of embroidery. I am just sorry that it is not clear what and whose exactly it is.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, October 11, 1998, No. 41, Vol. LXVI
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