Compiled by: Dr. Brian V. Xiong & Marlin L. Heise
Paperback, 378 pages, 8x11.5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64410-015-8
Martha had first seen Hmong embroideries when she lived in Laos in 1955, and it was while working with the Hmong in Madison, that she became more interested in paj ntaub and how it could become a source of income for the skilled fingers of the Hmong women, many of whom could not speak English nor had other job skills. Within a year from when she first met the Hmong in Chicago, she had befriended many of the women and helped them sell their embroideries on consignment in Madison-area gift shops and museums. She was meticulous in noting their names and each piece of paj ntaub sold, and saved pages of transactions. She greatly appreciated the skill that went into each embroidery and the beauty of the finished pieces, which eventually led her to purchasing a large number of their works for her own collection. She held an exhibition of paj ntaub at the Elvehjem Art Center (now Chazen Museum of Art) in Madison in 1982 and loaned paj ntaub to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center’s 1985 exhibit Hmong Art: Tradition and Change.
With the support of the Minnesota Humanities Center’s Legacy Cultural Heritage and Identity Micro-Grants, the Hmong Archives and HER Publisher present this book as a tribute to Martha L. Zimmerman and the many Hmong women whose fingers and needles produced these 700 beautiful works of Hmong textile art.