Tuesday
We painted ‘Relaxation and Stress’. We certainly were feeling very much more relaxed but Eva and Kelly were highly stressed, various workmen who were supposed to come and work on their house had failed to materialise and much needed to be completed before they returned to London.
It was very peaceful painting except for the occasional clatter of horse’s hooves on the track close by. One was taking a cartload of men with large wooden rakes up to their strips for haymaking. Another was laden with coal. Chickens clucked around outside and, sometimes, children wandered by, casting a quick glance at the strange sight of six people painting in a barn.
At lunch we dined on cauliflower soup with added pasta dumpling-like shells, and a repeat of the cabbage leaf parcels filled with mushrooms. Eva had gone hunting for mushrooms but hadn’t found any, the locals won’t tell her their precise location!
We had a surprise that afternoon. Ewa and Kelly had also been to Jurgow, the village we visited yesterday, to see the local priest regarding secondhand furniture. In the process they’d discovered he had an amazing collection of Polish art which we, artists, were invited to see.
Transport back to the priest’s house was no problem. Benches and blankets were arranged in the back of a small lorry, which had also been used to transport rather odourful commodities, and in their car, a BMW well-covered with dust to make it less attractive to potential thieves.
Alas, we arrived to find the priest had gone out. His large traditional-style house stood alongside his former small wooden shed-like home. The Church is obviously very wealthy in these parts. So, we continued to drive down the country road into a narrowing valley leading up into the high mountains and the frontier with Czechoslovakia.
Standing back from the road was a settlement of about twenty wooden houses just like the one we’d seen in the museum of Jurgow, one room to live in with a stable at the rear for the animals and the hay supply.
It was so peaceful, long grass and pink willow herb growing all around, wild raspberries and blackberries creeping along the now closed windows and doorways. It really was just like stepping back several hundred years in history, only the people and animals were lacking. I think it was one of the first farming settlements in the area, prior to that people led a nomadic life or lived in caves in the higher mountains.
It was a glorious afternoon, so we decided to stroll back to Bialka soaking in the pattern of greenery and the peace disturbed intermittently by ongoing haymaking. Returning to the river we found a stall for tourists selling ice cream. Blueberry was definitely moreish.
At supper there was a new dish, a hot stew made of butter beans and sausage remnants in gravy, very warming and tasty. So was the cheese which followed, finely sliced like lace tablemats.
Someone had been given a lift to downtown Bialka to post our cards. Situated next to the post office she found a patisserie. Someone else had discovered a local garage shop selling a variety of bottles of vodka. So, we had a party that evening, whilst filling in more background information on Poland from ‘A Rough Guide’.
Wednesday
Awoke to the sound of falling rain, fine sheets of rain hardly visible against the trees but the ground was very wet. Discovered that my French friends had rung Ewa to let me know they were on their way to Bialka, and Francine, the last member of our group, arrived by bus from Cracow after a journey filled with the unexpected. The painting subject for the day was Friendship. Luckily, although it was wet it wasn’t too cold to paint in the barn.
My friends Danielle and Annie, last seen on our journey to Finland, arrived in the early evening. They had spent the last two weeks visiting Annie’s relatives (her mother was Polish), and Danielle’s exchange teacher contacts. I almost expected Anne-Marie to be with them but no. They had visited her and husband Frans in Amsterdam earlier in the summer, but she was planning to holiday in France with relatives and old friends.
Ewa, who speaks fluent French, had negotiated a room for them earlier in the day in the large house where we eat lunch. However, when they prepared to move in, they discovered that the room had been let to a passerby. Undaunted, Ewa went to a neighbour’s house and negotiated a room there. There certainly are a lot of rooms available to rent but very few are advertised, maybe it’s different in the ski season.
It was useful having access to a car again. With Danielle and Annie, we drove to the other end of the village, a road stretching for several kilometres, backed by the same large houses set back from the road, many more under construction. We found a few shops including a post office and a tiny bar, the haunt of the local youth. We sat there for ages, nobody coming to ask for an order, and caught up on the last couple of years.
Thursday
August 15th Assumption Day in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology, important both in Poland and in France. It follows the doctrine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken (assumed) into heaven body and soul following the end of her life on Earth.
We drove to Ludzmierz, a village in the area where important religious celebrations were held annually. (My French friends still skilled guidebook travellers, finding locations of interest.)
We found crowds and crowds of people, mostly in family groups, walking along either side of the road towards the church. Many of the older women were wearing the traditional flower-patterned dirndl skirts, white lace blouses and flower-patterned shawls with headscarves. Whilst here and there men were wearing the cream woollen embroidered trousers and waistcoats, we’d already seen at the mountain festival. The prettiest were the small girls dressed in the frilliest dresses imaginable. In fact, most people seemed to be wearing new clothes for this occasion.
The large church stood in the centre of an equally large grass area surrounded by a high wall on which paintings of saints were hung at regular intervals. There was also a confession box in which a priest was listening non-stop to each of those queuing quietly on either side.
People moved in waves all around, some to a service being held behind the main church where a huge altar had been installed. Its pointed ‘roof’ was reminiscent of the new local houses and, strangely enough, of shrines in Sumatra. Nearly everyone was carrying a bunch of wildflowers, some were placed on the outdoor shrines, others moved inside the church where we could see a mass of flowers and glittering statues. Amidst so many people it was beginning to feel very claustrophobic. On the wall of the church, we noticed a large photo of a similar gathering taken a year earlier showing hundreds and hundreds of people packed into the walled area.
We moved outside wall of the church to a fairground. It was equally packed with people buying fruit and brightly coloured sweets for small children, some having rides on a high-flying machine. Near the gate of the church sat gypsy women, some with babies sleeping on their knees, others with small girls alongside, a few seated alone, all begging for money but receiving little.
I’d forgotten how much my friends were interested in religious art. We left Ludzmierz and drove back along the valley opposite Bialka towards the village of Kalijawa. The scenery was flatter and less wooded with fewer traditional wooden houses but, a big surprise, on some rooftops were huge nests with storks in them!
The church at Kalijawa was very old, made of small, dark brown pieces of wood joined in circular layers, it was also surrounded by a low wooden wall like that of Jurgow. An unexpected find was the huge trunk of a tree sliced open vertically, containing a beautiful, simply carved figure of Christ. Tall trees surrounded the wall and the grass around the church giving it a very calm feeling.
The silence was suddenly disturbed as people began to pour out of the church as the service ended. We prepared to walk in to visit the church but were stopped by men about to clean the floor. We just had a brief glance at an exquisitely carved and painted wooden interior.
In the afternoon we drove back up the mountain to Bukovina, where I’d seen the forest festival. In daylight it was a more obviously a thriving ski resort and buildings continued down the other side of the mountain. Each village and town that we passed had a name plate at beginning and end. The villages stretched out along this road for miles rather than extending around a central spot.
We drove on into a valley surrounded by pine trees, overlooked by the higher Tatras Mountains, to the tourist resort of Zakopane. We had some difficulty finding the main street. Drove up and down leafy streets hiding beautiful old dark wooden houses, mostly two storeys high, with designs cut into the wood, these sometimes painted white, and windows more intricately carved than those around Bialka, obviously this is a larger, wealthier town.
We eventually discovered that the main street was pedestrianised, so parked the car and joined holiday crowds ambling along, viewing shop windows. There were lots of jewellery shops selling amber necklaces and beautiful brooches with amber set-in decorative silver designs, plus a great deal of gold and silver jewellery which, apparently, was cheaper than in France.
People sat sunning themselves in pavement cafes whilst many others licked their way through popular ice cream cones. Horses were pulling attractive carriage-taxis up and down the slope, no problem with slipping and sliding, their shoes were shod with rubber soles.
At one point, a huge white stuffed bear stood in the road, at its feet lay a huge white fluffy –haired dog looking equally stuffed until it yawned. Panic, was the bear going to move too??
Small stall holders sold the many handicrafts for which the area is famous, wooden boxes of different sizes, decorative axes, wooden eggs painted in colourful patterns, leather bags and purses, wool sweaters in greys and creams with matching socks. The latter very cheap at £7 a pair. So many tempting purchases but the thought of adding any extra weight to my already leaden suitcase was out of the question.
Annie and Danielle, well-supplied with maps and guidebooks, were able to lead us to the old church of the town, another constructed in the now familiar dark wood. Most interesting was the cemetery in a small wood behind the church. Here were buried many famous artists and scholars, drawn to the town in the last century by its healthy air and quaint environment. Most of the graves were overgrown with moss and wild plants but some had decorative carved wooden headstones, some small and dainty, others like large totem poles. It certainly was a lovely place to be.
We drove back to Bialka through a light drizzle which turned into a downpour. Easy to see why vodka is so popular with the locals.
Friday
The others were intent on purchasing the last of their Polish presents so we drove to Nove Tak, the nearest town. The central square was very large with a green surrounded by shops. I managed to change sterling for zlotis very quickly in a small ‘Kantor’/ Exchange but spent nearly half an hour in a bank changing Travellers Cheques. The paperwork was tedious.
Whilst Annie and Danielle focussed on finding jewellery, Vodka Chopin and Cigarettes Georges Sand, I sat and watched the world go by. Most people were well-dressed though a lot of older women wore their traditional clothes. Girls were in mini-skirts and leggings, boys in jeans much like in any other small town in Europe.
The shops are small. A florist shares with a confectioner, a fine blue glass shop shares with a hardware store. In the vodka shop, they discovered that once all supplies of a particularly popular brand were sold, there were none kept in reserve. Ewa had mentioned this problem with supply and demand, for example with shoes. Only a few of each style used to be kept in stock but now there are more designs with just one or two sizes of each. Rather a problem if your feet don’t fit those sizes.
We completed the visit with a quick tour of the churches, the ancient, with a lovely silver icon on the wall, and the modern, a version of The Last Supper carved in stone on the altar piece.
Back at the group house for lunch, the menu was pink – borsch (beetroot soup), followed by cold ribbons of flat pasta with blackberry jam and cream and finally, hot fish with potatoes which was infinitely preferable.
In the afternoon, following the guidebook, we drove back in the direction of Zacopane to a particularly old village. The wooden houses had been built without nails; just wood panels jointed together. Also, each year the houses were scrubbed down, so they remained their original pale honey colour. They were closely built side by side with the side of each house facing the road. For greater security? In the barns at the back of the houses, chickens and cows meandered around and horses could be seen pulling the familiar long, low carts.
We stopped for a drink in a café sharing space with a shop. It took half an hour for water to boil for the tea bags.
Since we were so close to the Slovakian border we decided to investigate. Only a few cars were ahead of us at the quiet country border, so we decided to cross for a brief visit. Passports were examined, faces matched to photographs by two different military officials, our names then checked against the ‘wanted’ list in a book. Finally, we were waved on.
The countryside changed to low hills, fields were suddenly large, no strip system here, hay was flung into large communal haystacks. As houses appeared there was a return to the more usual style of house, gone the attractive steep-roofed houses of southern Poland. The buildings looked old, the cement-covered walls were discoloured, there were few people around. Twice we saw people pushing a metal structure, handles stretching down to a base attached to wheels, an alternative cart, to transport hay.
Large buildings began to appear, possibly some sort of factories and soon we were in a small town. Wooden telegraph poles balanced awkwardly at the roadside, their wires looping over the landscape. The impression was of much greater poverty than was evident in Poland.
We reached a crossroads and decided to head back via a different border crossing and soon had cause for regret. Along the straight road infront of us, heading up a low hill, we could see huge lorries packed nose to tail. It was difficult to judge how far ahead the crossing was beyond the hill and we only had an hour and a half to reach home for supper.
Fortunately, the lorry driver infront waved us on. We drove along an empty straight road passing about five kilometres of parked lorries before reaching the second border. There was nothing to indicate what was holding them up or how long they’d been stuck there.
We arrived back just in time for supper. Spent the evening, still in French, catching up on the last two years. In the morning I waved Annie and Danielle ‘Au revoir, bon voyage’ wondering when and where we’d meet again.
Saturday
It rained non-stop all morning. I rejoined the painting group to find that most of the others were going to Neve Tak by bus but since I’d had enough of tourism, I stayed at home catching up on domestic affairs and writing. By lunchtime the rain had eased so we were able to reach our eating house without getting soaked. A hot blackcurrant drink awaited us followed by cabbage soup, then beef (from a slaughtered, home-reared cow) with millet dumplings and pickled gherkins.
There was painting in the afternoon. The rain fell again so we wrapped up in several layers of clothing for the half-open barn. The subject of the day was ‘Persona with Animus and Anima’, Ewa has long been a devotee of Jung, me too. A small neighbour’s child who had joined the group yesterday finished painting a brightly coloured house, and then moved around the group standing thoughtfully, watching each person in turn. She then found another piece of paper, a tissue and some paint and produced a beautiful abstract painting.
By six o’clock we were freezing so headed for home for dinner, an unusual dish of thinly sliced cabbage cooked with pieces of sausage, rather like German ‘sauer kraut’. We watched the TV News as usual, the adverts, which weren’t already familiar from England, were becoming well known, before spending the evening playing charades and Botticelli.
Sunday
A glorious sunny morning, Ewa’s day off, her mother was due to arrive from Krakow with Kelly.
We decided to explore the narrow road at the back of our house leading upwards through the woods. Quite a steep climb at first which reached a grassy plateau divided into the familiar strips of land, much of the haymaking now completed. The scenery was a glorious selection of greens from the bright green cut grass, darker greens from the forest behind and above them a magnificent view of the Tatras Mountains extending in the distance for miles.
After lunch we decided to do some sketching around the house. Whilst fixated on a wood pile, Linda took life drawing a step further with quick sketches of a highly mobile cow and later, some even more mobile chickens.
In the early evening Ewa and Kelly had prepared a party to say thank you to two couples, local Polish friends who’ve been particularly helpful to them in renovating the house, and also as a welcome to Ewa’s mother.
Party Polish style consisted of several toasts with vodka being knocked back in one gulp, followed by bread with ham, sausage and vegetables in mayonnaise. Later came two kinds of jam-filled cake plus Polish cheesecake and apple tart, vodka being swilled throughout. Surprisingly no-one appeared particularly drunk.
Entertainment followed, Kelly an aspiring guitar playing singer (two concerts in Krakow next week), gave us a preview. Most were familiar old rock and blues numbers from the American 60s, so I actually engaged in a swing of rock and roll with a delighted Pole about my vintage!
Their refurbished house is on its way to being beautiful. The original house consisted of a bedroom, kitchen/living room with small bedrooms upstairs in the attic. The downstairs has been completely redesigned to include the original barn so forming two large split-level rooms in pine wood, very attractive. They have plans to build a huge studio over a second larger barn with garage space underneath which is where we’ve been painting.
Monday
Awoke to the hoped-for sunshine. Had breakfast early in preparation for the anticipated trip to the higher mountains. Alas, the ordered minibus didn’t turn up and it proved complicated to reorder as phones were few and far between. A certain number of lines are allocated to an area and once these have been distributed hard luck on anyone wanting one. Think of all those new houses.
(What follows is a retrospective written in London. I had neither time nor solitude to continue writing whilst in Poland.)
So, with glorious weather, we climbed up to ‘our chalet’ on the hillside to stretch out in the hot sunshine on the deck. Whilst some soaked up the sun others painted and sketched. The views were beautiful.
On one side, down the green slope to the on-going haymaking in the strips, stretching from our ‘home’ to Ewa’s house, and beyond. On the other side, yet more haymaking, forests and the Tatras Mountains.
Back at the studio, spent the whole afternoon painting ‘My Mind’.
Tuesday
Another glorious day dawned. In the morning we finished our paintings and had our final discussions before clearing the barn and packing our own possessions.
Wednesday
We said goodbye to our hostess and her family. Her voice and body language seemed to say,”Will you come back again?” “We will,” came our definitive reply.
Back in our little bus we headed for Krakow through rolling hills where wheat was being harvested. On the lower slopes vegetables and flowers were being grown but within an hour and a half, the tall black industrial chimneys and blocks of flats of the modern city appeared on the skyline.
Some of the group continued to view Auschwitz Concentration Camp, now a ‘tourist attraction’ with a big difference. Having spent two weeks soaking up the positive energy of the countryside I decided not to overwhelm my mind with negativity and, having settled back into the Wawel Hotel, I joined others exploring museums and churches.
Found a captivating portrait by Leonardo da Vinci of a ‘Woman with an Ermine’ painted when he was in Milan, and others by Polish and European artists. Ewa initially studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. Students were trained to paint pertaits in the classic style so loved by Polish nobility. Her own style has evolved through different stages since then though her skill as a portrait painter sometimes shines through a more abstract painting in an unexpected way.
The largest church in the main square had a breathtakingly high ceiling under renovation, gold stars shone from a deep blue background above paintings of biblical figures. I felt the absence of my French friends who were so knowledgeable about biblical symbolism. The choir stalls, a series of exquisitely carved panels in very dark wood, were being admired by both foreign and Polish tourists.
It was difficult to imagine so many violent clashes in history taking place in the huge square. Trapped between Russia and Germany, such powerful neighbours, Poland has had much of its territory demolished yet the old churches remain. According to Annie and Danielle, many more are now being built across the country.
That evening we were joined by Kelly, Ewa and a dazzling aunt of hers. With short dyed yellow curly hair, flashing heavily made-up eyes, demonstrative hands, she seemed more typically Parisienne than anyone Polish we’ve met so far.
At first, we had a drink in the cellar bar visited on our first evening. This was accompanied by a tasty snack of cooked tomatoes on a slice of white toast, followed by a milk soup with tiny snips of carrot and greenery floating on the surface and unexpected small chunks of ham and half a boiled egg hidden in its depths.
The aunt then led the way through quiet streets in the old town with all the panache of a tour guide to a bar in the Jewish quarter. Lively now but such horrors were witnessed here in the past. The bar was dimly lit but came to life when the star attraction, a musical group from Odessa began to play. Their music was totally mesmerizing.
love Pen
PS. 2022, Back at home in Hornsey, my connection with Poland continues,
in my local Sainsbury's.
And, on my living room wall:
'Psyche' by Ewa Gargulinska.
Wooden Frame by Kelly Burke.
Recently, a surprise email from Annie in France, very saddened to hear of the Queen's death, and thinking of Anne-Marie who had great respect for her.
The Queen spoke French fluently and loved French culture.
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For Art Lovers - https://www.naomielfredross.com/post/the-anxious-artist--reconnecting-to-the-body-through-art
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Next Week - Maldives 1985
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