Apart from learning to make lace she had to go to an art school and a textile school ( higher education).
I don't know why the countries behind the Iron Curtain put such an emphasis on art and craft skills, but there is no denying they did.
*Crafts*, yes; art -- some; the more "decadent", "bourgeois" expressions of it (like oil paintings of flowers) weren't all that welcome :) As to "why"... It was part and parcel of the entire philosophy. The premise was that the workers and the peasants had been stomped on for ages, and now deserved support from the country which, according to the "mission statement", they were ruling. Since they (and not the bourgeoisie or the aristocracy, who were more likely to produce art) had always been the producers of crafts (at least on the mass scale), crafts, *automatically*, became "a good thing". Now, give those same peons training not only in skills but *also* in art, and, perhaps, you end up with a "very good thing", that the westerners -- with foreign currency which is actually *worth something* -- will buy... :)
I can't speak for USSR, Czechoslovakia or East Germany, and Poland has no lace tradition to speak of, but I think the principle was the same in all of those (and also in Hungary, Bulgaria, Roumania and Yugoslavia): the state supported, heavily, "peasant arts", because they *fit*, perfectly, into the overal "picture" that was being created.
But Susan is right (at least as far as Poland is concerned): the cornerstones for that philosophy had been laid in the late 19th/early 20th century, before *even Russia* changed the system to "red". The beginnings of the fascination with the "native art" go back to the Romantics. In Poland, the interest got to its peak during the Art Nouveau (or, "Young Poland") period, with the centre located in the South -- in the Tatra mountains. Artists (painters, writers, poets, composers) went there for the cure (not everyone could afford to go to the Swiss Alps <g>), and discovered the native talent. Their wives decided to do something about it and started a (free) boarding arts and crafts school for the more promising children of the local populace. The school taught, in an organised manner, all kinds of crafts already common in the area: embroidery, weaving and (some) lacemaking for girls, wood carving, metalsmithing and leather craft for boys. And, the husbands of the charitable ladies, being on hand, provided the art tuition...
That school survived all the changes -- the regaining of independence in 1918, the change to communism in 1945 -- pretty much intact. I don't know what its fate is now but, as late as 1971 (last time I was in the area), it was still "going strong"... Its graduates were considered almost "shoo-ins" for admission to the Academy of Art in either Krakow (nearest) or Warsaw. Which was quite a feat, considering that there were only those two Academies in all of Poland, and that there were 30 candidates for each place... Even if one didn't follow up and go on to the AoA or the U, being a graduate of Kennar (post WWII name, after a superb skier/jumper of the area) carried a cachet that other schools couldn't match.
Communist Poland did not start any more such schools. Plenty "technical" highschools (including some embroidery ones) -- specialising in this or that... And *all* highschools had *some* art included in the curriculum... But none were *quite* like that one in scope.
In those countries that have fairly recently returned to capitalism, it will be interesting to see whether this type of education and training is maintained, or whether it slowly diminishes and disappears over time. That will tell us a lot about whether the emphasis on art & craft skills was a product of individual choice, or of government intervention.
Don't know about the schools, but have observed some changes in the shops... :) Poland used to have special stores (CPLiA, for those who'd ever visited Poland), which stocked "folk art" items. A bit like "Pier 1" stores, but limited to a single country.
Some of the items sold there were mass, and machine, produced -- dolls in regional costumes, for example. Some were entirely hand made (drawn-worked and embroidered table linen especially was, often, spectacular), but still made to a pattern which was replicated in thousands. Hand-made pottery always had more individuality, especially since it was also hand-painted, and there were some variations to the wood carvings. The true "cream of the crop" were the weavings, especially the ones meant for hanging (not as bed throws, for example, though those were nice as well). Those were -- usually -- either entirely unique or else produced in no more than 3-5 copies. They cost -- from my point of view -- the arm and the leg and the butt besides -- but some of them were *glorious*...
From the time I had any money at my disposal (16), I used to "trawl" the CEPELiA shops; most of my "dowry" was assembled from those (including two weavings, though not of the superb quality). So, it was natural, that I went to visit them whenever I went back to Poland. Since the "change" half of them have disappeared -- they're no longer state-supported, are expected to make a profit and can't. The other half... In order to support themselves, they mutated... most of the items there now bear "made in China" or "made in India" stickers; they've added pots and pans and plastic items to their selection...
OTOH, there are now some "non-specialised" shops which carry items previously only available through the "folk" ones. Since they're no longer state supported, the folk items in those stores are even more expensive now, but they're still available. And the situation in Krakow is somewhat better than it is in Warsaw -- although the truly rare items are now sold in art galleries (at art gallery prices <g>), there are plenty of shops which sell "folk art" (including textiles), of middling-to-good quality at fairly reasonable prices.
----- Tamara P Duvall Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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