Tomáš Mikolaj
Pavol Vrtich began to think about wicker weaving in 1987. On the one hand, he wanted some extra income and on the other hand, he wanted to take advantage of the days off which his employment as a train driver gave him. His father was already an excellent basket-maker, and used to work in the basket-making cooperative in Nové Mesto nad Váhom. At that time, his father was recovering from a stroke and his state of health meant he was unable to communication, so Pavol Vrtich began to look for information on how to start basket-making outside his home. In the end, he found his uncle, who wasn’t a basket-maker, but did know how to weave baskets. He was the person he used to go to for advice. For years, he did weaving alongside his job. He adopted to the needs of his customers and the market, and when in 2005 there was a threat of redundancies on the railway, he made a voluntary decision to devote himself entirely to basket-making. To begin with, he focused his production programme on wicker furniture. Later, with his wife Viera, who has been his designer from the very beginning, he launched a new production programme focusing on shopping baskets and women’s handbags. However, he can also make to order any shape and size of basket using different weaving methods. In order always to bring something new to the customers he meets even at large craft fairs, he comes up with a new basket shape every year. He was awarded the title of Master of Folk Art Production in 2019 in the field of wicker weaving.