Martin Mešša
The focus of Ľuboš Straka’s carving creation is the decoration of his pastoral pipes and fujaras (foo-yar-as), which are decorated with the line cutting technique, acid etching, as well as mordants. Thus creating custom combinations of Detva fujara’s vertically aligned themes related with ornaments and connected with ribbons into a single unit. It creates impressive decorations of unique musical instruments – fujaras, six-hole pipes or koncovka pipes. Their creation was inspired by products of current and recent fujara players from Podpoľanie, as well as fujaras in museum collections. He creatively develops motifs in various combinations, with respect to an acceptable level, which goes hand in hand with the musical quality of its products. Ľuboš Straka’s carving is also linked to the production of shepherd dishes. He uses the beautiful, and unique lines of burl wood in the manufacture of bowls, salt containers, boxes, ladles – big and small, whose shape varies according to the size and nature of the burl wood. A separate part of Straka’s woodcuts represents figural creation. In 2014 he was awarded the title of Master of Folk Art Production for high carving skills in making musical folk instruments and pastoral dishes from the burl wood.