She spent her youth and student years in Banská Bystrica. She devoted herself to textile techniques from an early age under the influence of both her family background – her mother sewed and crocheted, and her peers, when they spent whole days in the yard with dolls and sewed clothes for them. In school, as part of handiwork, she learned to embroider using various techniques and stitches, and at home she created popular embroidered kitchen towels. And although she eventually studied industrial construction and worked as a construction technician, her childhood hobby remained faithful.

After getting married, she started living in Bratislava. In 1990, she noticed an advertisement in the newspaper for a weekend course on sewing textile dolls at ÚĽUV. She enrolled and was so fascinated by the course that she subsequently participated in many other textile technique courses at ÚĽUV (wrist technique, embroidery with a curved needle, gatry, weaving on looms, batik).

In 1996, she even started collaborating with ÚĽUV as an embroiderer in the fashion design department. Her contribution helped create many models of costumes, capes, and blouses. She sewed applications, embroidered with silk, wool, made cords from wool and cotton thread, did tambour work, embroidered napkins with chatajs motifs, made linen and hemp bags with knotted ornament. For the costume production department of ÚĽUV, she embroidered components of traditional clothing and also collaborated with the folk ensemble Lúčnica.

She had a great relationship with the main artist of ÚĽUV, Janka Menkynová, who approached her in 2003 to create a textile horse, the model of which was no longer being produced at ÚĽUV and needed to be revived. This is where her affinity for producing textile animals and dolls can be dated back to, which has grown close to her heart and now forms a significant part of her creative work.

In her production, she exclusively uses commonly available cotton fabrics and also enjoys working with indigo dye. The density of the canvas is important so that the product holds its shape well after being filled with hollow fiber and does not allow the filling to protrude. She also adjusts the pattern to the fabric’s properties. She works systematically. She sketches several animals or dolls on the fabric, cuts them out in strips, and embroiders eyes or other characteristic elements on them on a circular frame. Once prepared like this, she cuts them out along the edges, irons them, and edges them from the inside. After turning the fabric inside out, she fills the product with hollow fiber and sews the opening.

She creates animals and dolls based on different periods or moods. She has been fully dedicated to producing textile animals and dolls as an independent craftswoman since 2008, working from her own designs, patterns, and ideas. As she notes, in retirement she has had enough time to indulge in her hobby. Textiles are her life; in her spare time, she also engages in bobbin lace making at the Petržalka club Okolok and other textile techniques at the Vretienko club, which is under the auspices of the Regional Crafts Center of ÚĽUV Bratislava. She also serves as a course instructor for adults (whipstitch embroidery) and children (“Crafty Holidays”) at ÚĽUV, teaching the younger generation to love textile techniques. She also passes on her knowledge within the family, as two of her three daughters follow in her mother’s footsteps.

She was honored with the title of Master of Folk Art Production in 2016.

Source: Mikolaj, Tomáš: Masters of the New Millennium [online]. Bratislava: Centre for Folk Art Production, 2020 [accessed 2024-05-29]. Available at: https://uluv.sk/library/digital-library/.