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Audio Recording Interview with Wanda Krozel about Polish crafts, Chicago, Illinois, part 1

Interview with Wanda Krozel about Polish crafts, Chicago, Illinois, part 1

About this Item

Title

  • Interview with Wanda Krozel about Polish crafts, Chicago, Illinois, part 1

Names

  • Kalčik, Susan J. (Collector)
  • Krozel, Wanda (Interviewee)

Created / Published

  • Chicago, Illinois, June 2, 1977

Headings

  • -  Polish Americans
  • -  Ethnography
  • -  Interviews
  • -  Illinois -- Chicago

Genre

  • Ethnography
  • Interviews

Notes

  • -  Wanda Krozel, part 1
  • -  Part 1 of a 2-part interview with Wanda Krozel about her craft work, biography, and her collection of Polish craft items; topics on this recording include discussion of her parents, born in Poland as was Krozel‘s husband [Josef], who is the president of the Highlanders [probably the Polish Highlanders Alliance, a Chicago-based organization for the Goral ethnic group of Poland] in his second 3 year term; Wanda Krozel has been in the group since she was a child, her father was in it; about her collection of craft items, "I appreciate anything that's hand done, where these people see it all the time and think nothing of it"; Krozel picks up anything that interests her, her first trip to Poland was in 1970 for her 25th anniversary; her husband worked in Poland for a while and got things for her during that period too; she has been to Poland every year since that time; how she travels, 4 of her 6 children have gone too, she. has 3 at home now; describes a trip made in the winter; not a good time to go for her, she stays with her father's family in the Podhale region; if she meets someone or sees something they have that she likes, she asks them to get it for her or finds out where it came from and gets it herself; she describes carving or engraving on glass; work done by someone she met in Poland, also comments on a man who paints on glass now in the U.S.; she likes any kind of craft; Krozel shows her eggs, which she painted herself, she paints eggs with watercolors, after penciling in the design; she uses designs from postcards, towels, postage stamps, anywhere she can get ideas; Krozel uses “double 0” brushes, the work is very fine; she has a collection of things from which she can get ideas; the Polish eggs are her favorites; because no one else does them, some have Christmas themes, the Stations of the Cross; Krozel gives her eggs away; she started doing eggs when a nun in the 8th grade gave her class eggs to decorate for a priest, without suggestions, they were to design on their own; she experiments with different kinds of eggs to see if she can work with them, will create an egg for a friend on a special occasion; Krozel’s largest is a goose egg with a church design, the smallest is a finch egg; she is full of ideas but has no time to do them and is looking forward to being alone for 3 weeks on her son’s farm in Indiana; Krozel has never taken an art lesson and is afraid to do things on her own, why she copies designs; a neighbor who saw her eggs after she moved to present house about 15 years ago encouraged her to let others see them, she took them to a PTA competition with other schools and has subsequently been showing them in public; regarding her collection of craft items, Krozel likes unusual things, comments on a few, most she has are modern and made for the tourist trade like the inlaid straw pictures; about painting on glass; about a doll maker whom she visited in Poland, whose dolls are authentic in detail; Krozel’s wood carving, discussion of how she decorated a mirror herself, burning the wood to make it match the style; about a man who paints on glass and instructed Krozel in this craft; Krozel also does leather work and carving; about a man who made inlaid boxes, he is back in Poland how, he had come to craft demonstrations at various functions; about a man who makes the mountaineer style pipes of metal and clay (Krozel's role in the Highlanders is/was to arrange for public displays of crafts and so on.); the collection includes items that belong to her family, e.g., a box brought to her by her mother 40 or so years ago, when Krozel was 4 years old, her mother had been visiting in Poland and the box was from a cousin, the names are marked on the bottom; as a child she treasured such things and wanted to see who made them; she has made Polish costumes for her children’s dolls; about weaving and rug making, she knows a woman in the U.S. whose husband made her a little hand loom to demonstrate Polish weaving for Krozel’s events; the woman has been in the U.S. for 1 or 2 years, her husband came first and brought her over, they meet at her house for the lessons in painting on glass; Krozel makes up the weaving design as she goes along; about leather work; Krozel shows examples of metal work on Highlander men’s pins, her teacher knows all about the function and motifs of the pins; Krozel describes how the pins hold the material of the shirt together.

Medium

  • audiocassette, C-60

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Call number: AFC 1981/004: AFS 20790a
  • MBRS Shelflist: RYA 0788
  • Field Project Identifier: CH77-T265-C

Source Collection

  • Chicago Ethnic Arts Project collection (AFC 1981/004)

Repository

  • American Folklife Center

Digital Id

Online Format

  • audio

Rights & Access

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Credit line: Chicago Ethnic Arts Project collection (AFC 1981/004), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

KalčIk, Susan J, and Wanda Krozel. Interview with Wanda Krozel about Polish crafts, Chicago, Illinois, part 1. Chicago, Illinois, June 2, 1977. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1981004_afs20790a/.

APA citation style:

KalčIk, S. J. & Krozel, W. (1977) Interview with Wanda Krozel about Polish crafts, Chicago, Illinois, part 1. Chicago, Illinois, June 2. [Audio] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1981004_afs20790a/.

MLA citation style:

KalčIk, Susan J, and Wanda Krozel. Interview with Wanda Krozel about Polish crafts, Chicago, Illinois, part 1. Chicago, Illinois, June 2, 1977. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/afc1981004_afs20790a/>.