Barbara Wieczorek

Everything created by Mrs Barbara Wieczorek, is characterised by a specific work scheme and plenty of time devoted. In order to make the fabric for flowers sufficiently stiff, it has to be starched and ironed. And thus e.g. nylon is turned into poppy flowers, cornflowers, violets or camomille flowers. Gobelins (tapestries) are embroidered with cross stitch based on ready-made designs. One gobelin (tapestry) is usually created in her nimble fingers for a couple of months. While preparing a spider, first a rack is made, the strips are later wrapped with wool and smaller elements are fixed to the bigger structure. The colouring of the spiders show references to the Sanniki outfit – with prevailing orange, green and blue. Easter eggs wrapped in crepe tissue paper are also laborious. Tissue paper has to be curled into small strings, and then wrapped around the eggs and glued.

Mrs Barbara comes from the family where creative tradition have always been kept. She was taught handicraft in Municipal Cultural Centre in Sanniki. In the beginning of the 70’s of the previous century she used to sing in a folk choir with her husband and in the 80’s she began attending various kinds of workshops. She was taught to make paper cutouts, embroider gobelins, make crepe tissue paper and fabric flowers. The first workshops were devoted to embroidery, next to stained glass, to be later followed by cutouts. Building their own house and running an agritourism farm forced Mr and Mrs Wieczorek to give up their participation in the choir. However, agritourism activity helped Mrs Barbara develop her creative passion.

She is an extremely versatile folk artist: makes gobelins, table cloths, napkins, paper paper cutouts, fabric and tissue paper flowers, spiders, stained glass, Easter eggs with Sanniki cutouts or crepe tissue paper. She sells her products at various fairs and sales. She began with advrtising her agritourism farm at the fairs, occasionally selling the products of other folk artists. At some point she tried offering her own products which turned out to be a great success. Her success resulted in her participation in many tourism fairs, museum exhibitions, sales in Poland and abroad: e.g. in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands or the USA. In the United States she taught how to do paper cutouts and spiders, her workshops arousing much enthusiasm and interest.

At present she does not sell her embroidered products, since it is too time-consuming, and due to the price of her products not many people are interested. She produces paper curtains and stained glass just for herself, whereas fabric and crepe tissue paper flowers, spiders, paper cutouts and Easter eggs with cutouts or tissue paper can still be purchased.