For four decades, the embroiderers of Ninhue, Chile, have been stitching scenes of rural life in the place of stones their village in the foothills of the Coastal Range between Santiago and Concepcion. Their work stands today among the most evocative of Chilean arts, as evocative as the story of how they came together at a crucial moment in Chile's history. Amid the political upheaval of 1971, stitchery expert Carmen Benavente returned to her native Santiago to find much of her family s farmland expropriated and resentment fomenting against former landowners. Death to Benavente she saw...