Signed Verso

No one knows exactly when straw appliqué (or encrusted straw) art arrived in New Mexico. Noted folk-arts scholar, E. Boyd, claimed in her 1959 booklet, Popular Arts of Colonial New Mexico, that the Moors taught straw art to the Spanish, and that the Spanish then brought it to their northern colony. The claim is entirely possible, but Spain and the Moors were not the only Europeans working in the medium. Both Belarus and Poland have a long history of making intricate art pieces using straw. The process also exists in the Netherlands and the Peterborough Museum in England has a collection of straw inlay art created by French prisoners during the French Revolution.

Paula Rodriguez, along with her husband Eliseo, were instrumental in reviving straw appliqué artistry during the Depression, an art passed from the Moors to Spaniards and then brought to the Americas.