The Embroidery Folk Art Series portrays the vibrant, colorful life of Hoi An—a place where I have lived since 2014. Those were one fo the most beautiful years of my life, as I began a dream career: becoming an embroidery artist and moving to a place with blue skies, golden sunshine, stunning ancient houses, and warm-hearted people who still preserve traditional customs. Every day brought new joy and discovery. I captured this happiness in a series of folk-style, vibrant, colorful embroidered works, including “Hoi An Story”, “Village Festival”... that I began in 2015, and by 2017, I had completed the final stitches.

The theme of the pieces connects two elements: one is the traditional folk motifs often found in ancient embroidery, such as “Returning in Glory,” “Boat Wedding,” lotuses, and the allegorical Phoenix and Dragon, symbols of success and happiness. The other element features scenes I encountered daily in Hoi An’s old town—wooden houses adorned with colorful lanterns, playful children, or a street performer near the temple gate. I also included many flowers and trees, sometimes quite large, because I love nature. Compared to Hanoi, where I was born, people here live closer to and more in harmony with nature, making life more balanced and beautiful.

To master the technique of embroidering human figures in folk style, as I did for most of this piece, I sought out a village near Hanoi called Tu Van. I had fallen in love with a folk embroidery work I saw nearly 30 years ago—it was full of life and intricate details. Fortunately, the owner of the piece remembered the name of the original embroiderer and the village. When I visited Ha Tay, I learned that Tu Van was one of three villages—Quat Dong, Tu Van, and Dong Cuu—once renowned for embroidery. Now, however, most people in Tu Van had abandoned the craft, with only the elderly still remembering the stitches. The embroiderer from 30 years ago, now an elderly man, was surprised and delighted that a young person sought him out to learn about embroidery. His eyesight had weakened, and the old embroidery patterns on tracing paper had turned yellow in the attic. But he happily described the techniques, especially how to embroider faces to give a sense of space and soul. I returned home to experiment on my own and eventually figured it out.