Jicin – The Town of Traditional Crafts in Fairy Tales Art and Crafts

Artist Marie Brozova's recollections of the public drawing event in Jicin, as a part of the festival Jicin - The Town of Fairy Tales.

The main theme of this year's festival "Jicin – the town of fairy tales" were creative workshops lead by students of many art schools and handcraft training institutions. The weather decided to complicate the situation for the young artists who had to stay hidden under their weak shelters, protected from rain, but not from cold. But against the bad weather conditions they chiseled, sculpted, weaved, drew, painted, carved in stone and wood, sewed and who knows what other crafts they performed with great courage, and in the end they won the weather over and the last few days the sun was shining on the finale of the festival and resulting art pieces from all the workshops.

I also chose to picture a fairy tale craftsman (though weakened by cold and severe flu) – Maple tree – the painter of the fall. Painters are admired these days as artists, but the old masters from the past we are looking up to, used to work like mere craftsman in their patron's service. In many cases we do not know even their name. Artists are worshipped in our culture, but as if the craftsmanship vanished from their work. What is valued in visual art, is the idea, the rapid effect of everything which is shocking and provoking our troubled, though very comfortable present You can pronounce anything to be a piece of art – for example a broom with a condom on it. Do you think it is a bit thick? All you need is an inventive title, let us say "Adam" and, of course, an academic degree. Then there would be nobody to question the artistic value of your piece of art. But most people would look at such piece of art, created just for show, only once, and at best they will laugh at it as they would laugh at a good joke. But why would they want to see it again?

A piece of art worthy of respect is usually clapped up quickly and spontaneously. "If I don't finish it until the evening, I would like to throw it out of the window!" cried out an artist, who was absolutely shocked to find that I needed about hundred hours to complete my large formats. The arrogance of artists, who are proud of their degrees and heritage of their renowned teachers, goes that far that they ridicule ordinary people. No wonder that average people often take an aggressive attitude towards modern art. You can even hear the word "artist" as an abuse, meaning fraud and lazybones. The true craftsmanship is left behind, the humble meditation adding up the energy of hundreds hours of concentration. Maybe that is the reason why people, who are really skilled, often call themselves craftsmen, not artists.

But pronouncing my colored pencils technique a craft would probably be also daring, for colored pencils resemble respected art techniques like a clasp knife resembles a woodcarver's chisel. Nevertheless, my skilled Mom used only a clasp knife sharpened on a stone to carve beautiful fairies from crooked beech branches that had not only an expression on their face but they could stand on the ground keeping their balance. I have never seen such beautiful fretwork since the time. But the "art science" claims the right to pronounce some techniques artistic and some non-artistic – as if the medium was more important than the idea that the artist is able to express.

Colored pencils are a model case of so called non-artistic technique. All the students leading workshops were trained properly in this prejudice and therefore they were very interested what they would see with their own eyes. In the beginning, they came to my easel incognito, afraid of their teacher's reaction, but during the week they spend long hours watching my work and bought colored pencils to shock their teachers, who were ignoring me. And why they admired this "non-artistic" technique so much? They told me they could see that it was impossible to scamp your work with colored pencils. Every square millimeter has its own importance. The technique uncompromisingly reveals if you can draw or if you are just pretending. And what is more, they cannot be corrected or erased. They can be sharpened and used in creating the smallest details and in every detail you can find a story. Each time you look at the picture, you notice something different. And colored pencils are also like apostles of all bright colors of the rainbow. It would feel like a sacrilege to dim them with shades of grey, brown or white as they had been taught at their art schools. An astonished student told me after a long time he was watching my work in silence: "At last I can see how beautiful the colors can be in drawings!" But I also received more alarming compliments. "It looks as if the drawings were printed by machines!" I could hear many times from children. I could only wonder what implicit trust modern time holds in machinery, and how skeptically people look at human work. For that reason it is always good to watch craftsmen while they are working. Only then you can see that their work cannot be substituted by machines. So craftsmen, Vivat! Even Rumcajs, the most popular bandit from Czech children's books, used to be a shoemaker in the beginning, although he celebrated the 40^th anniversary of his long and successful bandit's career this year.