Halina FIJOŁEK (b. 1936), Two-sex macata

wool; 40 x 104 cm
Signature in composition: HF
cf. Award in. Oskar Kolberg Award and Folk Art of Southern Podlasie '90, District Museum Biała Podlaska

Halina Fijołek was born in 1936 in Grodzisk, and currently lives in Węgrów. She also graduated from elementary school in this village.
She learned weaving from her mother and aunt. Since she was a child, she helped at the loom - threading the warp threads through the threading machines, and in the absence of her elders, she would sit at the loom herself and try to weave. At the age of 12, she began doing various knitting tasks.
In 1953 she left her home village for Szczecin and married there, and in 1960 she settled in her husband's hometown, in the village of Wąwał near Opoczno. In Opoczno, Halina Fiołek worked as a homemaker in the cepelia cooperative "Opocznianka." In 1973, she and her family moved to Węgrów and there, at the Podlaska Cooperative of Folk and Artistic Handicrafts, she completed a course in weaving on hand looms. At first she made sumacs, but in 1978 she took up carpet making using the double technique. Her teacher and master was the visual artist Zofia Rostek, who taught her how to compose fabric. Halina Fijołek quickly mastered weaving techniques and soon began composing carpets on her own, introducing her own patterns. She developed her own style characterized by filling the entire surface with small elements, such as trees with heart-shaped leaves, small flowers, birds, and finally religious buildings and country cottages. She used contrasting color combinations.
In 1979, she received an honorable mention for her "Polish Landscape" rug entered in a competition at the Bialystok museum. She later confirmed her skills in weaving double carpets by winning awards at various competitions and folk art exhibitions. She won, among others, an award in the "Earth close to the heart" competition (Torun 1988), eight 1st prizes in the "Folk art of southern Podlasie" competitions held in 1989, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 in Siedlce and Biała Podlaska, and 2nd prize in the "Polish Army in folk art" exhibition (Warsaw 1983).
The artist received a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and Art in 1982. She is also a member of the Association of Folk Artists. She also cooperates with the Węgrów Cultural Center - she passes on her creative skills to schoolchildren as part of the "Program for the Protection of Disappearing Occupations" of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. In 1997, she received the Siedlce Governor's award for artistic achievement.
Double carpets made by Halina Fijołek have in their collections museums in Warsaw, Łódź, Płock, Toruń, Biała Podlaska, Białystok, Łuków, Lublin, Ciechanów. (Oskar Kolberg Award)