Zalipie

Pologne

merci à Delphine du luxuriant paradis express

extrait d'un texte Ste Handley

.....The house belonged to Stephania now in her 80`s and considered the `mad woman ` of the village. She did a lot of shouting from her back door but somehow our guide managed to persuade her to invite us in. We spent an hour with her and saw her amazing interiors paper decorations for weddings and paper pattern cut sort of net curtains. 

She did little now but had done so much folk ritual art of all kinds in between working the small farm with her late husband and children all now abroad. I took photos when I could without being intusive. 

She used to make brushes from her cows tail hair and boil up pigments and dyes with dumplings to give body to the paint. This natural paint faded each year and was repainted  after a particular religious festival  when farm work was`nt so pressing. 

All this house painting was done by the women and is said to have started in the 1800`s when the fire was open, whitewash for the exterior was used to make patterns etc on the smoke blackened ceiling. With the coming of the enclosed stove and chimmney it developed into a folkart form at times with amazing colours. 

Stephania had even painted sunflowers on the trunks of he fruit trees and outside her door in the garden were bits of old dolls and plastic flowers. She had obviously been a leader in folkart in the village and teacher to. ........

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