By Chris Rogers
It dates back 30,000 years to Cro-Magnon days, and what a painter does in a few quick brushstrokes can take hours in this medium. Nevertheless, Poul Onderko has been turning out original thread art since the 1970s. These unique paintings are coveted by collectors across Europe, the United States, and right here in Brazos Valley.
“In the ’70s, I married a woman of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage,” says Onderko. “She loved embroidering flowers on clothing. My brother is a painter. I experimented with everything from pencil to oil paints yet found nothing engaging until I tried my wife’s process — needle and thread. My business was landscaping, so I created a landscaping scene with Disney characters, which I embroidered on a shirt. Many weeks and pricked fingers later, I knew I’d discovered a medium that intrigued me.”
From shirts, Onderko turned to denim jackets. He learned the hard way that threading six strands of floss through the eye of a needle was only the first problem.
“A shot glass, which has a little pit in the bottom, made threading the needle easier,” he says. “But then I had to pull the needle and all that thread through a piece of denim — again and again and again...”
Cartoon characters led to more challenging original designs in the 1980s. For his sister, Onderko embellished a denim jacket with a pair of horses.
“Visiting my sister in Arizona, I began sketching buffalo, birds, little native fetishes, and developing these into thread-art,” says Onderko.
With the arrival of the 1990s, Onderko, now remarried and employed by a casino security firm, moved to the border of Arizona and Nevada.
“I spent a lot of time in the desert, fascinated with the environment of cactus and flowers, lizards, roadrunners, and other desert dwellers,” he says. “Then I discovered Navaho kachina dolls.”
In his research, Onderko visited the Heard Museum, learning that kachinas are carved to represent immortal beings who bring rain, control other aspects of nature, and relay messages between the human and spirit worlds. Specific figures represent months in a ceremonial calendar.
“From museum books and pictures, I created a colorful group of individual kachinas representing the season of the spring festival,” says Onderko. “I took it to a gallery. They bought it, framed it, and sold it. I made another one, even more colorful, sent a snapshot to the Navaho Nation, and they brought me slides painted with the true traditional colors for my next version. Each of those thread paintings represented months of work, but what can I say? I enjoy doing it.”
Much of Onderko’s art is donated to various officials, dignitaries, and museums. “A judge in Nevada has three eagles in his chambers,” says Onderko. “The Clark County Town Hall has a Native American scene with a desert background, the constable’s office in Laughlin Township has a piece of my art, and the casino’s director of security has two pieces. Here in Texas, Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk has a piece in his office. A picture of a buffalo soldier hangs in the African American Museum in Bryan. A portrait of Lawrence Sullivan Ross, Texas A&M legendary and former Texas governor, is owned by Citizens Bank.”
Now a member of the Brazos Valley Art League and American Embroiderers Guild, Onderko’s interest is devoted to portraits. His renderings of Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush may soon find their place as contributions to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. Artwork Onderko doesn’t donate, however, can bring hefty prices as compared to a painting of similar size.
“My brother might paint a monarch butterfly in two hours. That same butterfly in thread? Days.” To other artists considering this challenging medium, Onderko says, “Time and interest are key, and patience is a virtue. This art I love takes a lot of patience.”
