Tomáš Mikolaj
Archaic basket-making techniques include weaving from small roots, that is the roots mainly of coniferous trees (spruce, fir, pine). In the past it was widespread in the Slovak lands in the regions on the foothills of the Carpathian arc from the eastern border of Slovakia to Záhorie; today, it is almost forgotten due to the complicated preparation of the starting material. Despite (or thanks to) this, we decided to try bringing back to people’s minds today the technique of weaving using roots and making them consider its revival. Members of the “Association of Basket-Weavers of Slovakia” created at the end of 2018 mainly weave using willow branches. It was thus debatable as to whether the topic of roots would interest them. Three people expressed an interest (Jozef Boďa, Pavel Hirka, Ivan Soška) and so we tried out this type of basket-making.