Back from my Polish paper cutting adventure and now trying to absorb everything I saw and did there. I travelled up to Kadizlo in the Kurpie region of north Poland, about 3 hours bus journey from Warsaw, watching the countryside become more dense with forests of pine, spruce and birch. I saw storks’ nests perched precariously on top of wooden telegraph poles, and small hamlets populated with wooden houses and be-ribboned garden shrines. Kadizlo is a smallish village but has on the outskirts the Zagroda Kurpiowska, one of Poland’s famous Skansen or open air ethnographic museums, and here I had a date to meet with a traditional folk artist, Wieslawa Bogdaniska. The Kurpie region is famed for its beautiful and intricate Wycinanki and she’s one of its stars, so it was an immense privilege to have a one-to-one session with her, learning how to make some simple cut outs using the hefty sheep shearing scissors you see in the photos. Hard to imagine producing such fine and delicate work with these, but she’s been learning the art since childhood and her fingers were so nimble that I could only laugh at how easily she could make the most elaborate lines, gliding through the paper while I was struggling to cut a basic V shape!
She showed me how to make two traditional patterns of the region, the Star ( bit like an old fashioned lace doily or the snowflake cut outs you make as a kid) and the Leluja, or Tree of Life design. Every piece she makes is completely freehand with no pre drawing, yet her cuts are so geometrically precise that they could have been done with a ruler. Whereas mine were all over the place! I was determined to use the traditional scissors and not the kind they offer to school parties for wycinanki workshops – a bit like defiantly eating noodles with chopsticks rather than a knife and fork – but it’s definitely something that needs plenty of practice.
The wycinanki paper is very thin and that also makes it quite hard to cut as it shows up every mistake, so you really have to concentrate. After a couple of hours I felt so exhausted I could have fallen asleep at the table! But it’s addictive too, and back home I’ve been looking at the designs we made and resolving to practice, perhaps for the time being with my normal scissors and possible with a little bit of cheating too to draw some basic designs out before cutting. Since sadly I don’t have Wieslawa at hand, or any living female relatives who could have tutored me in the art since childhood, you’ve got to start somewhere…
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