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• Vocation for a Dying Art Sonnemann passed away on Aug. 23, 2004. For most of the past three decades, however, she had been a woman on a quest: traveling the world to collect and photograph traditional appliqué textiles. She believed these textiles embodied the spirit and values of the peoples who made them. Appliqué, which Sonnemann called a dying art and “the most ancient mode of embroidery,” is made by stitching one piece of fabric to another. She wrote that she was more than 50 years old when the idea for this quest came to her in a way that “was as spiritually compelling as a call to a religious vocation.” Selling her house to finance the adventure, Sonnemann eventually made 10 collecting expeditions of up to three months each, visiting corners of the globe from the Arctic to the Amazon River to the Bedouin tents of Syria. The Nell B.B. Sonnemann Collection includes 500 appliqués from 30 countries and is housed in the Gallery of Art & Design at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. |
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