• Threads of Awakening — An American Woman’s Journey into Tibet’s Sacred Textile Art
• Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo
• Author Events web page>>
• ISBN: 978-1-64742-093-2 | $24.95
• Release Date: August 23, 2022
• Publisher: She Writes Press Distribution: Ingram Publisher Services

Interview with Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo

BW: What led you to this unique and beautiful art form? Can you give us a short “background story”?

Leslie: I’ve always been drawn to Eastern spiritual traditions. After grad school, I went trekking in Northern India and felt a resonance with the Tibetan culture I met there. On that trip, I also met Westerners doing long, low-budget travel and some who had settled in India and Nepal after serving in the Peace Corps.

A couple of years later, I took off on my own for what I thought would be a year of backpack travel. I had arranged to volunteer for the Tibetan Planning Council in Dharamsala for an undefined period, which I imagined would last a couple of months. But when the bus pulled into Dharamsala, I felt immediately at home.

I worked at the Planning Council for a year helping to plan a census. One day, as part of this work, I joined a tour of Tibetan handicraft centers. When we walked into a sewing workshop at the still-under-construction Norbulingka Institute, I fell head over heels in love with the pieced silk images I saw there. Shortly thereafter, I found a teacher—and then another—and set my life in a whole new direction.

A 1-2-3 step-by-step photo series featuring Leslie at work.

Leslie: “This series of photos shows how sections of the drawing are transferred to various fabrics. Lines are stitched on. Pieces are cut out and edges turned under. then pieces are assembled into clusters and stitched together.”

Teachers and Guides

BW:  Can you tell us about your teachers, guides and helpers on your journey?

Leslie: So many I could write about: Geshe Sonam Rinchen, Tenzin Gyaltsen, Dorjee Wangdu, Khamtrul Rinpoche… I may come back to this question.

BW: What was your key mission in writing this profound life story?

Leslie: Early in my apprenticeship, I realized I was uniquely positioned to write a book about Tibetan appliqué thangkas. There are no books on this art form in any language, just a few articles and a paragraph or two in books about other Tibetan arts. I’m a literate English speaker with uncommon access to a little-known precious tradition. I felt a responsibility and a debt of gratitude to my teachers to document the form. It felt like a life assignment that I would need to fulfill one day…

But, for many years, I preferred making art over writing about it. (I really don’t love writing.) Then, for another several years, I thought I needed to get some formal education in art history so that I could trace the art form’s origins and speak on it authoritatively. I looked into advanced degrees but was discouraged by a couple of professors from taking that path.

Finally, I realized my direct experience was the most accessible and interesting way to approach the topic. So, I started writing my memories of apprenticeship, of the tsemkhang (sewing workshop), of life in Dharamsala, and of my experience making specific thangkas. The story gradually took shape over the next few years. I had to find the story in the writing of it.

Another  step-by-step photo series featuring Leslie at work on a Green Tara thangka.

1

 2

Threads of Awakening: the title

BW: Threads of Awakening is a brilliant title — can you tell us your inspiration for the title? You use the language of threads and connections and the idea of “Kabar dro ge?” throughout. One chapter starts off “walking clockwise around objects.” Later, part Three is “WARP” which is very twenty-fourth century. You even have a Zoom talk called “When Your Detour Becomes Your Life’s Path” — similar metaphors. Can you elaborate on your inspirations?

Leslie: Thank you for appreciating my title. I named my website, my thangka-making business, Threads of Awakening several years ago. I honestly don’t remember how the words came to me. In writing the book, I considered many different titles (and subtitles). I have long lists of ideas and early manuscript drafts with a variety of titles. But I kept coming back to “Threads of Awakening.” I’m glad the title worked.

I tried to bring the language of threads and fabric into the book to provide a sense of connected structure. I actually don’t feel I succeeded to the extent I’d hoped to, but you seem to have found it in places I didn’t even know it was there! I think thread is naturally metaphorical for a path—whether that be a spiritual path or a path of travel or, as I like to say, of wandering.

Interdependence is a key concept in Buddhism, in my own world view, and in this art form of overlapping, interconnected pieces of fabric, pieces of the picture. There is no ground, no underlying entity on which everything rests. The pieces of our world, and we ourselves, arise out of relationships.

“Warp” was not intended to be “twenty-fourth century” at all. It refers to the linear threads on a loom. It provides structure. Weft threads weave through warp threads to create fabric.

Greatest Inspiration

BW: Who was your greatest inspiration and why?

Leslie: I’m not good at these kinds of questions, at superlatives, at choosing the “greatest.” My response may change if asked in a different moment. Reflecting on the question right now, I think my greatest inspiration may have been Ram Dass. He was smart, successful, funny, and willing to re-create himself again and again. He left academic life to wander, met a teacher, became a teacher, and was consistently unconventional and of inestimable service.

Dharamsala: “I’ve come home”

BW: In your postcard to your parents when you arrived in Dharamsala, you wrote: “I’ve come home…” Is it still “like home?”

Leslie: The feeling was palpable and immediate. I felt warm and happy. I felt related. I felt like I belonged. A smile lit up my face. I went to sleep that night in a hard bed in an unfamiliar guest house with an outdoor squat toilet during monsoon… And I was completely comfortable.

Is it still home? Not really. It’s developed and changed. It’s much more crowded now, and somehow less distinct from other places, for me. And I think that chapter has closed. But who knows?

The Nechung Oracle

BW: One interesting story in your book was about the Nechung Oracle. Can you tell our readers that story?

Leslie: There are so many meaningful anecdotes! The Nechung Monastery was right outside my window. For my first three or four years in Dharamsala, I’d wake every morning to the sound of chanting and drums. Occasionally, long horns and loud cymbals would rouse me out of bed, announcing that the Nechung medium was going into trance and the oracle would be consulted. Crowds gathered to get a glimpse of the oracle and receive his blessing. Attendants beat back the surging crowds. One day, I stood with a Tibetan friend of mine, a young thangka painter, watching the mayhem. My friend lamented the reckless and greedy manner in which devotees scrambled for the blessed balls of tsampa (roasted barley flour). “Don’t they realize,” my friend said, “that the real blessings are in our own minds? We Tibetans should know at least that.”

Another favorite anecdote, probably my favorite of all is when one of my apprentice colleagues asked me if Westerners believe in ghosts. When I said that most probably don’t, she replied with deep sincerity and perplexity, “But if they don’t believe in ghosts, what do they say when they see them?”

Proudest moments

BW: What are you most “proud of” moments in regard to your long journey on the Threads of Awakening?

Leslie: I think I’m most proud of finishing my assignment, of actually writing and publishing a book that documents and honors the tradition I inherited. If a large number of people read and learn from the book—and are maybe even inspired by it—I’ll be even more satisfied.

“An even higher art…”

BW: You quoted Glenn Mullin, saying “For us, painting and sculpture are the two finest forms of art but, for Tibetans, appliqué and embroidery are an even higher art.” Can you explain what he meant, or you meant by quoting him?

Leslie: Well, in the Western art world, textile arts are not given the same respect that painting and sculpture are. Textile arts are usually relegated to the craft category, and fiber artists—many of whom happen to be women—are often not considered to be fine artists. That is not the case in Tibetan culture according to Tibetan art expert Glenn Mullin and others such as Valrae Reynolds, former curator at the Newark Museum, and Pema Namdol Thaye, traditional Tibetan artist and architect. Perhaps (at least partly) because fabric thangkas were traditionally stitched by men and because they’ve always been rarer than paintings and sculpture, they have long been considered to be among the very finest arts in the Tibetan region.

Even my book, Threads of Awakening, gets categorized as “Crafts & Hobbies,” rather than “Arts & Photography” when I use the keywords “textile art.” I don’t mind because I think crafts are cool, admirable, and infinitely valuable. But it does say something about how Western culture thinks about sewing and fabric arts.

“Don’t think too much”

BW: Can you share your favorite related inspirational teaching, sutra or practice?

Leslie: I included my favorite practice and advice at the end of the book. My root teacher Garje Khamtrul Rinpoche gave me this succinct advice:

“Think a little about emptiness. Arouse some compassion. Visualize Chenrezig. Recite his mantra. Don’t think too much.”

I get distracted easily and enthusiastic about new things. I also often feel like I’m not doing as much as I should. Rinpoche kept bringing me back to essentials. He assured me that any one authentic practice is enough. And he also supported me in trusting my own resonance. I feel a deep connection with Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara), the embodiment of awakened compassion. I don’t need to feel I’m missing something. That resonance is a trustworthy guide. And any moment of practice or reflection is better than none.

• Don’t miss the excerpt from this beautiful book from the first chapter,  “The Dalai Lama will See You Now”  found here>>

Book Details

Editorial Reviews