My new scarf collection, Herencia (heritage) is inspired by the Traditional Spanish Heritage Arts of New Mexico. The three skilled crafts that I’ve focusing on are colcha embroidery using wool, decorative tin metal work, and carved wood furniture. The scarves are named for the towns where these traditions developed a distinctive style or particular influence.
INSPIRATION & RESEARCH
New Mexico has a rich history of craft and art that has evolved from necessity and devotion. This artistry has permeated my consciousness since I was a little girl. New Mexico also has a way of embellishing everything from the bank vigas to the bathroom sign at la tienda.
These arts are not only decorative but functional; a heavy wool bed coverlet for wood-only heated homes, a delicately scored and pierced tin frame to honor a particular saint’s lithographic image, a carved and hewn golden chest used to store clothes or bedding.
Besides visiting family in Northern New Mexico and seeing these objects in use, I also had a front row seat to these arts that were experiencing a renaissance or rediscovery in the 1980s. This area of expertise has been my mom, Helen Lucero’s life’s work. She’s helped promote artists, was a judge at Spanish Market numerous times and has helped to curate exhibits and write labels and essays about the subjects.
The topic is huge and honestly I became frozen in place trying to do it justice. To my great relief she has helped me condense the information here. Its been fun to work with her on this and there a reassurance knowing I had the help of someone knowledgeable about the subjects.
DESIGN PROCESS
My research phase is a gathering of images. Like a greedy little squirrel I store pictures digitally and get happily lost down many paths of relational eye candy. I have been known to make physical mood boards but not usually. I see the things I want to focus on in little bites. A wavy line here, a cross of certain proportions there. I won’t get into the overwhelming topic of appropriation vs. inspiration but I do feel it’s my absolute responsibility to translate my visual thoughts indirectly— through my own lens, if you will.
When beginning a new collection, I want to think about how each design relates to the others and to have enough differences that each will seem special. I do a few loose sketches of the overall layouts and choose the best combination as a whole. I then draw motifs with pencil and use a light box and brush pen to trace over the sketches on marker paper. In the design process, after scanning these illustrations, I might use about 1/2 of the new ideas and a few pieces and parts from past explorations that I have in a big library of vector miscellany. As I tell clients when describing custom work, much of the magic happens when manipulating the parts in Illustrator; new combinations beget new shapes and create more interesting elements than I could have tightly planned for.
Once I have the general designs nailed down I begin with color explorations. In this case I wanted the colorways that would relate to the specific arts:
Browns, dusty pink and blue for dyed wool
Black and grays for metal or tin
Olive, brown and cream for wood
These may or may not make sense to you, but this is how my brain works. Each was tied together with a common color, one of my favorites— coppery gold. I also use my past experience in accessory design to stay away from colors I know are a challenge to sell. This is an unpredictable science but in general we have found that bright yellow is not a big seller and that people who hold things up to their face stay away from reds and light skin tone palettes. I also want the colors to be "on brand" and to coordinate with my existing products.
MANUFACTURING
The manufacturing of this collection was a leap for me. This is my first made in China product and I’m taking on a lot of risk by bootstrapping this first order. I love the quality and I’ve said that if this was my last collection at least it has all the features currently not available at USA factories. Sshhhh; I already have another collection in my head ready to go… and will not be nearly as hard to birth.
So, 2 rounds of samples later and I gave the thumbs up. This factory has been so easy to work. I write this as I await my shipment. Then I’ll be tagging and bagging.
MARKETING
For this first pre-order release I’ve got a few fun extras to throw at ya… the art was screaming to be made into some paper products!
The photo shoot I did this past weekend was my usual frantic hold-my-breath-while-shooting and run around like a crazy person that barely knows how to use a camera. Torn between styling, checking product, looking at background, pumping up the jams and cooing to the models. It’s really a total circus and I could barely walk afterwards. But I want to thank my friends Risa, Hope and Samuel for your generous help and good cheer.
PRODUCT
Facts about this collection are as follows:
- 26” square — 4” larger than my Bandanñas
- 9 mommy silk cotton — light and flowy
- Folded hem
- Design shows on both sides
- Branded hangtag
- Handwash, line dry out of sun
- Ethically made in China
- Very luxe hand feel
- Think fashion scarves with bandanna style
COLCHA
Colcha is a type of embroidery that utilizes a distinctive type of stitch. It is sometimes referred to as a Bokhara or convent stitch. Wool embroidery threads cross over longer segments of thread at a 45-degree angle to hold the long thread in place. This technique covers large areas quickly and wastes little material on the backside. Churro wool is the preferred embroidery thread because of its long and lustrous quality.
In the American Southwest, colcha embroidery was introduced by the Spanish during the Spanish Colonial period and became popular in the 1700s. Nuns in religious orders embroidered floral and abstract designs on altar cloths and large coverlets. Churro wool was first carded, spun, and dyed using plants and cochineal bugs. The embroidery ground cloth used, sabanilla, was handwoven.
There was a resurgence in colcha embroidery in the community of Carson, New Mexico during the Great Depression of the 1930s. An entrepreneur, Elmer Shupe, acquired Rio Grande blankets in need of repair. Sophie and Frances Varos, Hispanic/Catholic sisters, who had married Shupe’s two Mormon sons, did the repairs. These sisters started a cottage industry by unraveling the blankets that could not be repaired and recycling the wool threads. They used the old threads to create new colcha embroideries that came to be known as Carson colchas.
Both men and women worked at producing the designs and embroidering the colchas. In addition to floral motifs, new subject matter was introduced. Saints, animals, and Indians were popular designs that appealed to the Santa Fe and Taos tourists and became an important source of income for the Carson community. Carson colchas are known for their designs, wool-on-wool overall coverage of the ground cloth, smaller sizes, and occasional fringe around the colcha.
Several women today engage in embroidering colchas. Classes and group stitch-alongs are held at various venues. Most of the embroiderers produce small-to-medium size pieces rather than the bed-size coverlets of the Spanish Colonial period. Few women produce the labor intensive overall-coverage embroideries, choosing instead to leave large areas of ground cloth visible. Floral motifs are the most common designs. Some of the Hispanic women embroidering today, and who have received acclaim for their colchas, include Julia Gómez, Irene Brandtner de Martínez, Beatrice Maestas Sandoval, and Annette Gutierrez Turk.
TINWORK
New Mexican tinwork flourished between 1840-1940 with the arrival of foodstuffs in tin cans via the Santa Fe Trail and, after 1880, by train. Recycled tin cans made of iron, which were coated on both sides with molten tin, were the main type of material used for this traditional New Mexican art form until the mid 20th century. Five-gallon tin cans of lard and kerosene were particularly coveted for their size. Using simple handmade tools, such as metal punches for embossing and knives for scoring, a number of artisans produced various religious and utilitarian tinwork items that were then soldered together. Religious prints and sculptures were the most common religious items enclosed in nichos and frames. Other tinwork items produced for churches included candle sconces and lanterns.
Tinwork pieces, which were almost always left unsigned, were originally attributed to schools of tinworkers in Río Arriba and Valencia Counties. José María Apodaca and Higinio V. Gonzales are two tinworkers known by name to have been working during the late 1800s to early 1900s. Mr. Gonzales, a master tinworker, is believed to have once resided in Valencia County in central New Mexico and might have taught school there. A large number of tinwork nichos, frames, crosses, and chests are attributed to him. His elaborately cut and punched tin frames were sometimes painted with red and green paint.
The Arts and Crafts revival of the early 20th century saw the resurgence of tinwork popularity and complemented the “Santa Fe style” décor popular at the time. Commercial sheets of tin had replaced tin cans as the material used by tinworkers. Reverse painted glass, colcha embroidery, weaving, and wall paper were sometimes incorporated into tin frames. Mirrors were frequently framed in this manner. Light switch panels, tissue boxes, card holders, and other utilitarian objects were also added to the type of objects produced in tin. Scalloped borders, floral designs, and decorative corners are hallmarks of New Mexican tinwork.
Among the families that distinguished themselves by producing outstanding tinwork were the Romeros and the Delgados. Emilio and Senaida Romero not only produced their own outstanding tinwork but they also taught and passed on specific patterns and techniques to their children. Several generations of the Romero family have continued to work in tinwork until the present. In the 1930s Francisco Delgado owned a shop at the corner of Delgado and Canyon Road where he sold large quantities of his tinwork. Jason Younis y Delgado, a fifth-generation tinworker from this family, apprenticed with his grandmother: award-winning artist Angelina Delgado Martínez. The popularity of New Mexican tinwork continues as evidenced by the selection of Richard Gabriel Jr.’s tinwork nicho as the art form featured in the 2025 Spanish Market poster.
WOOD/FURNITURE
New Mexico’s woodworkers have plied their trade since the arrival of the Spanish. Woodworking was engaged in out of necessity during the Spanish Colonial Period (1598–1821) in New Mexico and southern Colorado. Unable to transport much furniture, objects were created as needed in the New World. The Native Americans, whom the Spanish encountered, used very little furniture but their geometric designs did influence the Spanish colonists.
Although inclined to split, white or yellow pine were the woods most commonly used by Spanish Colonial woodworkers in New Mexico. The wood has a straight grain, is soft, and is easy to handle. Piñon wood, a scrub pine, was used to build smaller items such as saddles, shuttles, and plow shares. Cottonwood, tougher than pine, was also used for carving smaller items such as mixing bowls, dippers, and spoons. Juniper and oak were the strongest of the woods and were reserved for building things like a comb on a weaver’s loom and a carreta frame. Religious items, such as bultos and retablos, were usually carved from pine.
Because of the scarcity of metal until the 19th century (including nails), pegging, dovetailing, and mortising were the joinery techniques employed by New Mexico’s woodworkers. Metal axes and adzes were highly prized. Iron locks for chests were imported from Mexico. Many of the simplified design motifs in New Mexico were based on a Mudejar style, a synthesis of Moorish and Christian forms. Some of the decorative motifs used were rosettes, scallops, carved ropes, and double eagles. Indian geometric stepped and bracketed designs came later.
A chest or trunk (caja, cajón, harinero) were the most common pieces of furniture to be built due to their multipurpose uses. Cupboards (trasteros) also were fairly common since they were used to hold both food and utensils. Less common were trinket boxes and writing desks (vargueños and escritorios) since they were made for a wealthier clientele. Woodworkers also utilized their skills in building houses - hand-adzing roof beams and decorating corbels and doors.
During the WPA era (1935-1943), woodworking was one of the traditional art forms taught at vocational schools throughout New Mexico. Some of the class sites included El Rito, Taos, Gallup, La Ciénega, Mora, and Chupadero. Most of these schools produced work based on Spanish Colonial styles, which was sold at markets in Santa Fe and elsewhere. Furniture was also often commissioned for federal and state buildings. Abad Lucero and Elidio Gonzales are two of the best-known woodworkers and WPA instructors from this era.
Some artists working in wood today continue to learn woodworking skills from their fathers and grandfathers. George Sandoval taught his son Chris in the mid 20th century. Federico Prudencio, Randy Trujillo, and Andrew García are among the artists keeping the woodworking tradition alive in New Mexico today.
Some of the finest examples of these arts can be found at the Annual Traditional Spanish Market event in Santa Fe every July; The Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Musuem (Formerly Museum of Spanish Colonial Art); The La Fonda Hotel (visit); The Museum of International Folk Art.
(3rd poster: could only find this cropped version to share)
The explanations, example images, artist lists are meant to be for inspiration only. They are examples of what informs my translation to illustrations for this collection. No disrespect or harm is intended towards the artists or institutions pictured or mentioned, either in inclusion or omission. This is merely a layperson’s research performed to introduce the reader to an overview of these art forms.