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In 2019, artist Josephine Lobato won the prestigious National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship for colcha embroidery. Many of her colchas depict the history of her family and the culture of the San Luis Valley, where she grew up. Our interview took place at her home in Westminster, Colorado.
1.
I walk up to Josephine’s steps a few minutes early. The front door is already propped open.
2.
Josephine sits in a comfortable black leather chair. I ask if she’d like me to call her “Josephine” or “Mrs. Lobato.” She prefers “Josie.”
3.
At eighty-eight, Josie’s eyes are the same striking blue they have been all her life. Josie says they give her trouble sometimes, but that doesn’t slow her down. When I ask if she’ll show me a colcha stitch, Josie just nods, leans forward in her chair, and reaches for a different pair of glasses.
4.
Josie threads a large needle with a length of brown yarn, then lifts a wool backing cloth (called a sabanilla) and drapes it over her knees.
Before the first stitch of each colcha, Josie sketches her design in black marker. Then, she begins the gradual process of covering the lines with stitches. A small piece can take three to six months to complete. A large one, up to a year.
Josie says she is very particular about her needle.
“I’m just one of those people. Not everybody is the same. Some people can replace things. Doesn’t bother them.”
5.
As I watch Josie’s hand pull each stitch taut, I notice her wedding ring slowly shift to the side of her finger.
Josie’s husband, Eugene Joseph “Buddy” Lobato, passed away two years ago. They met as teenagers. This year would have been their seventieth wedding anniversary.
“The summer I graduated high school, Buddy got a job in Denver. We got married on Labor Day. Well, actually, we got married the Sunday before Labor Day. He got to San Luis on Saturday, we got married on Sunday, and then back to Denver on Monday, on Labor Day, so he wouldn’t miss work. See how practical we were?”
Josie points across the room at two high school graduation photos.
A young Buddy regards the camera with gentle focus and a young Josie beams, her smile ever so slightly tilted to the left, as if she’s just about to laugh.
6.
I lift a printout of the one of the colchas now on display at The University of Denver’s Chambers Center for the Advancement of Women.
La Llorona (2004) is based on a Mexican folktale. In brief, a wife discovers her husband has married another woman and drowns their two children in a river.
Josie carefully intertwined dark blue, light blue, white, and black stitches to mimic the play of light and shadow on moving water. In her version of the story, one boy floats and the other sinks as their mother watches from the banks—as if, at any moment, she might change her mind.
“[I imagined] La Llorona was sorry, “Oh, my God, what did I do?” And walked along the banks of the river screaming. That’s a scream that scares everybody.”
Josie says parents still warn their children that La Llorona, The Weeping Woman, will curse them if they linger too long by the river.
She shakes her head.
“To me, [La Llorona] wasn’t scary. She was someone just like us.”
I think of the difference between the events of a story and the meaning behind them.
A teacher once suggested to me that Medea, whose character follows similar lines, wasn’t trying to kill her children, she was trying to go back in time.
7.
Josie points to the trees in the background of La Llorona.
Their foliage is composed of green, black, and white threads overlapping and curving around the branches and trunks. The trees appear to sway, as if blown by competing currents.
Taken as a whole, the beauty of the landscape does not redeem the suffering of the people within it, and their suffering does not diminish its beauty.
I tell Josie the longer I look, the more I see.
She shrugs modestly.
“You know, I have an imagination …”
Mi Vida en Colcha will be on view at The Davis Gallery in The Shwayder Art Building of The University of Denver through December 4. Find more information on the exhibition website.
Header image: Detail of El Molino, 2018. Wool on cotton 22 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches.
All images courtesy of the San Luis Valley Colcha Embroidery Project.