CamTu Embroidery

NGUYEN THU HA

The artisan who perpetuates the Vietnamese traditional hand embroidery and enhances it into a fine-art with new techniques

“Boys read books and hummer poems, girls do needlework and embroider.” That was our ancient way of life. There are few Vietnamese women who do not know needlework and embroidering. Aristocratic ladies embroider for their pleasure, to cultivate their aesthetic sense, and to relax.

Mrs. Nguyen Thu Ha has no such privilege but uses embroidery as a means of living. Due to her inborn talent and her determination to advance, she has become a professional embroiderer, and, with her creative propensity, has improved the traditional embroidery handicraft into a specific branch of fine arts.

Thu Hà’s outstanding achievement was the successful fusion of old and new techniques with the plastic art and variegation of threads to emphasize the relief on the flat surface of canvas or velvet and silk, thus raising her embroidery to the same level as other fine arts. Because an embroidery tableaux sometimes requires a whole year of work to complete, her many responsibilities did not allow her to perform the work alone. She trained a number of gifted workers to become first class artisans, able to apply the modern techniques under her supervision. The Enterprise boldly exhibited sizable artistic embroidery tableaux undertaken at great cost and labor, describing animated scenes such as flowers blooming at spring time, foliage changing colors in autumn, girls enjoying spring, siestas on hammocks, rattan mat peddlers, etc. Other subjects such as tigers under moonlight, fishes gathering, mutation of fish into dragons came to life through her relief embroidery technique and silk thread. These tableaux, decorating private residences, auditoriums, vast public spaces, create a panoramic effect making them seem larger, more gorgeous and splendid. The enterprise also applies its specialty to praise historic heroes and noteworthy sites of the country.

Although conventional they embody a completely modern form and techniques. The latest initiative is portrait embroidery copying photographs or oil paintings on silk canvas with multicolored silk threads to give them a more vivid depth than the original photos or paintings. Thu Hà Enterprise has organized several exhibitions in the country and abroad to introduce its products. They are appreciated by the connoisseurs and obtain many awards and gold medals. These accomplishments are achieved partly by the contribution of the cooperating artisans.

In 1981, Mrs. Thu Hà was elected chairwoman of Saigon Embroidery Guild. In 1982, she was the deputy head of the Embroidery Export Consortium. In that function, she boosted the embroidery profession to the widest extent ever known. 33,000 embroiderers were registered in Saigon alone. Under the Vietnamese “glasnost”, a series of cooperatives were dissolved. CamTu was not an exception. However, it was these sudden and critical events that challenged Thu Hà’s capacity. She decided to separate her enterprise from the hired hands market like that of the USSR and East Europe. Deep sympathy for her dedicated artisans and her love for her profession urged her to find a way to adapt to the new situation. She selected about 500 “gold needles” and devotedly trained them into professional artisans. At the same time, she invited painters to teach them new painting techniques.

Mrs. Thu Hà, at the end of her life, should be satisfied that her wholehearted and valuable contribution during several long decades improved and advanced the embroidery tradition so that it has become a specific part of fine arts in the Vietnamese culture for all posterity.