Can only those who live in the country be called folk artists? Can one become a folk artist by simply moving to the country? Agnieszka Retko-Ruszczak is speaking about her adventure with folk art and about her ‘simple’ life in Masuria.

You deal with folk art and you don’t consider yourself a folk artist – why?

I don’t consider myself a folk artist because I simply don’t fit in with this term. According to Professor Aleksander Jackowski, a lecturer and a folk art collector whom I highly estimate, a folk artist is “a barbarian who has never been outside his village” and who “doesn’t even suspect he is an explorer”. I started painting at the age of 15, I studied at a managerial-artistic high school and did 6 months of an ethnographic study course during which I fell in love with the simplicity and sincerity of folk artists, and I graduated the Małopolska Folk University, a school of folk handicraft. For a folk artist - too many schools and too much contact with “Art”, I suppose [smile]; also, I was born in the greatest Polish ‘village’ – Warsaw [smile]


What is folk art for you?

I am not an expert in folk art, but when I think about it and observe the market, it seems to me that there are two kinds of attitude to folk art. One is that of the general public who think that folk art is sold in souvenir shops, and the other one is that of fanatics who believe that folk art items are only those made by some old woman in a lonely mountain village who, at night and by the candlelight, carves religious figures in the firewood. Only few people admit that this kind of art is evolving. The biggest difference between academic art and folk art is that the former reproduces reality or draws from it, and the latter mostly interprets the first one (and is called naive because of technical ineptitude and the absence of any dilemma as far as the resemblance to the original is concerned, etc.) And if I were to allow the theory of folk art evolution, I could easily admit that I myself have contributed to it. Folk art was always created to satisfy some need. Paintings of holy people were very expensive so if someone was a little talented, he painted ones for himself and others. In traditional peasant cottage there were two rooms: one called “the white room” – the part of the house where guests were entertained, and the black room, where everyday life was going. And peasants, as everyone else, liked their houses to be decorated and devoted a lot of energy to that. They rarely painted since paints were expensive and artists had to prepare them themselves. So they made paper cuttings and “spiders” (Polish dream-catchers, made of straw and crepe paper). Now folk design is enjoying a boom and the motives from cuttings and painted trunks are transferred to wallpapers, skirts and mobile phone cases. It’s good because they still fulfil their original function – they make our daily life more pleasant. It’s well worth remembering those who produce things we admire so much although the majority of them still remain unknown.


How come you moved from Warsaw to Szczerzbów? Why Szczerzbów of all places?

It happened a little against my will. With my savings I wanted to buy a little cottage in the Bieszczady, but my parents convinced me to lend them the money to buy a settlement in  Masuria - after a few nights spent by an old smoking stove – the only source of heating in a cottage which had only half of the roof, but quite a review of interesting paint layers, so I decided that all in all I can live in Masuria as long as it is in this very place.

What are you doing at the moment?

At the moment I am making a barn into a home, and as a job I am designing interiors and making furniture for a new hotel, which – to my delight – is going to be very rustic. In summer I earn some extra money teaching painting, sculpture and ceramics.


Can you earn a living from your work?

Unfortunately, for the moment I can’t, but I am optimistic and believe that my devotion to what I am doing will finally pay off.

Do you think you are a resourceful person?

I suppose all that means I am not.


What do you dream about? What are your plans?

I dream about morning coffee on my own veranda, designed by my husband and myself, and about washing the cups in my beautiful kitchen which is going to be the first fully adapted room in the barn. I always and constantly dream about the so-called peace of mind, but I still have to work for it a little [smile]. At the moment I don’t have enough time to plan anything else, but I would like to share with others what the folk art has taught me: to respect what you have and create your own reality rather than paint country flowers on a stool [smile].

Can only those who live in the country be called folk artists? Can one become a folk artist by simply moving to the country? Agnieszka Retko-Ruszczak is speaking about her adventure with folk art and about her ‘simple’ life in Masuria.
You deal with folk art and you don’t consider yourself a folk artist – why?
I don’t consider myself a folk artist because I simply don’t fit in with this term. According to Professor Aleksander Jackowski, a lecturer and a folk art collector whom I highly estimate, a folk artist is “a barbarian who has never been outside his village” and who “doesn’t even suspect he is an explorer”. I started painting at the age of 15, I studied at a managerial-artistic high school and did 6 months of an ethnographic study course during which I fell in love with the simplicity and sincerity of folk artists, and I graduated the Małopolska Folk University, a school of folk handicraft. For a folk artist - too many schools and too much contact with “Art”, I suppose [smile]; also, I was born in the greatest Polish ‘village’ – Warsaw [smile]