Tomáš Mikolaj
Tomáš Mihok remembers how when he was a child he pulled the air bags to keep the fire for two professional smiths – his grandfather and his father. And even though he himself hasn’t ended up being a smith, he has stayed faithful to fire. During his elementary school teaching years, he found out about pottery. It completely amazed him and there was no way back. He kept learning more and more about making ceramics in the Bardejov style and soon an offer to cooperate with ÚĽUV came by. Baking pottery is an alchemy, especially if we are talking about the field kiln. Tomáš Mihok build several of these. Through ÚĽUV he came across the smoked type of ceramics which demanded building a new field kiln which was technologically different to the one that was used for the Bardejov style pottery. And it was quite a process to penetrate the mystery of smoked pottery. Today he well deserves the title of the craftsman he has been awarded for renewing the tradition of smoked ceramics along with his achievements in promoting Bardejov style ceramics.