Straw appliqué–an art form practiced around the world–is believed to have originated as an art form practiced by peasants who desired marquetry, a form of decorating wooden items, typically with other wood, ivory or gold. Because of it’s visual similarity to marquetry, or inlay, straw appliqué soon was coined with the term “poor man’s gold”. Passed from the Moors to the Spanish as early as 700AD, and then practiced as a religious art form, it was brought to the New World and into what is present day New Mexico, where it flourished as an art form in the 1700’s and 1800’s, practiced by Spanish and Natives alike. At the end of the 1800’s, however, it was considered a lost art form.
