There will be two folk craftsmen from Poland coming to the Festival of Folk Arts, who wil be showing crafts specific to the Łowicz region (Łódzkie voivodeship, the middle region of Poland).
Łowicz is a town of around 30 000 in the middle of Poland in the Łódzi voivodship. The folk culture is still present in the every day life of the people of Łowicz, but the number of masters who are outstandingly proficient in embroidery or paper cutouts is declining. The traditional farmhouses were decorated with ornaments cut out from glossy paper in various shapes and themes, which included person and animal illustrations dominated by plant and geometric motifs. Often more layers of paper would be put on top of each other.
Paper cut outs
Mirosława Grochocka (born 1948) is a folk craftperson, continuing the regional tradition of Easter eggs decorated with paper cutouts and cut out paper overlays. She learned the technique from her mother Felicja Kazimierczak, known papercutout folk craftsperson, when she was twelve years old. Even as a child she helped her mother make paper decoration for „Sztuka Łowicka” homecraft cooperative, where she, in the early 1970s, worked as a paper cutout artist for two years.
In her works, she uses traditional materials and patterns. She decorates mainly chicken and goose eggs, which, according to tradition, decorates home shrines. Her favourite cutouts are openwork, drawnwork, and paper decoration decorated with rooster and flower motifs. She also makes ribbons, starts, genre- and flower codes.
Her works can be found in Łowicz Museum, and in the collections of the Museum of Ethnography in Warsaw, Toruń and Krakow.
She holds workshops for children, younger people and adults, where she makes cutouts and Easter eggs specific to Łowicz. In 2019, she held a nine-day workshop in Japan.
She comes to the Festival of Folk Arts to the invitation of the Polish Tourism Organization.
Sculptor / decorative arts – Crepe paper flowers and bouquets
Agnieszka Głuszek-Nowicka (born 1980) continues the Łowicz regional family tradition and is a member of the Folk Craftsman Alliance. Her interest in arts and regional culture was sparked by her father Adam Głuszek, known and recognised folk scupltor. By his influence, she started trying different artforms at a young age, beginning with the simple forms of decorative art – flower and silk bouquets, which she still makes today. In time, she also started sculpting and learned the technique of carving from her father, which she is still perfecting to this day.
Agnieszka Głuszek-Nowicka also likes to make bird figurines. Observing them in nature, she pays special attention to the colours and a naturalistic approach in their decoration. She carves Madonnas and angels too, as well as worldy figures specific to the Łowicz region. Her works are always polychrome. She uses a wide palette of colours. The main theme of the figurines are complemented by floral decorations, mainly flower and bird illustrations. Soft contourlines and solutions in form are descriptive of her sacral and worldly sculptures, while still sensible towards colour. Agnieszka Głuszek-Nowicka developed a unique style, expanding the themes revealed by her and is continually developing her technical skills. Her sculptures can be found in Łowicz Museum, Lipce Reymontowskie Museum as well as domestic and foreign private collections.
Winner of folk art competitions, she takes part in national and regional fairs. She exhibited her works in the Łowicz Museum, in the collective exhibition held in the Łódzki Dom Kultury. She holds workshops and craft demonstations for children and young people
Nowadays, she has been the presidential member of the General Council of the Alliance of Folk Craftsmen since 2019.
She comes to the Festival of Folk Arts to the invitation of the Polish Tourism Organization.
The habitants of the Łowicz region dress up in folk costume ont he occasions of national holidays. On one of the most important holidays of the Catholic Church, Lord’s Day, when the folk traditions also get a great emphasis, the procession of the worshippers leave the church in the colourful Łowicz folk costumes, the route of the procession decorated with colourful flower compositions. The Łowicz Corpus Christi procession is ont he UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
The Łowicz folk costume is not only the richest and most impressive costume (that is still worn today) of Mazovia, but of Poland. From the first half of the 19th century, it has been made of a striped wool base material, whose colour and stripe composition has changed over the years. Women’s clothing consists of a wide armed cotton shirt, pleated skirt, striped apron, and a floral embroidered shawl. Men’s clothing consists of a white collared shirt with ribbon, orange colored striped wool trousers, black or white peasant coat with an orange colored ribbon.
Photos: Paweł Onochin, Stowarzyszenie Twórców Ludowych
