Drotárstvo: Wire Craft and Art

Men & Heritage Crafts
139 followers
4 Video Views·Dec 31, 2025
Drotárstvo, wire craft and art, refers to the technique of manufacturing using wire. The practice was developed in the 18th century when wire craftsmen discovered the interesting properties of wire for producing utility objects and devised a simple technique for repairing and producing simple tools involving no welding or soldering, a technique still used to this day. Currently, bearers and practitioners work mainly at the artistic level, and some practitioners come from families with a multi-generational tradition of transmitting the related skills and knowledge.
I
am a farmer
from Zilina village equal
to a filter
I
have to go to the light
I must go
what is the reason
Labor is in its original form a popular
itinerant and seasonal occupation
It probably began in the early eighteenth century
or during the first half of the eighteenth century
in the two poorest
the horse regions of Slovakia
in the northwest
near Zilina and on the Kysuce mountains
In the northeast of Slovakia in the Spiš region
In those gypsy communities nearly
every house had someone who was a gypsy
So they gradually drifted further
away due to their mutual competition
So they occupied all of Western Europe
and Southern Europe they were leaving for Russia
My grandfather Pavel Hozák was born in 1869
and learned the trade
of a blacksmith from her
He went to the market
When he was older
he went for bread
he went to Russia
They opened a branch in
Kyiv and later moved to Odessa
They began producing a large quantity of
utility items from wire and sheet metal
For the work with wire
to be classified as wiring
it is necessary that the wires are preserved
The signs of the original craft
This means handcrafted work with wire
without the use of any soldering
or welded joints
and absolutely manual bending and some shaping of that wire
Of the oldest ones who worked as wandering
wireworkers which was actually wireworking pottery
which was broken into small pieces
or cracked and
pulled into mesh nets
In that case they somehow managed
to avoid it when the hole was made
The peak of this direction of wire manufacturing
became the production of the wire workshop
Jozefa Holánika Bakeľa in Warsaw who
brought the original unique and luxurious
ems baskets vases
chalices jewelry boxes made from carrying wire
We are in the long field near Žilina in the
field of my grandfather
Jozef Holánik Bakeľa
He is considered the first
world master of wickerwork
He elevated traditional underground
wiring to an art and later after his dea
He took up this craft
my son Jakub Sherifuya
He who was married into the family
The social situation and circumstances were not favorable to
this craft during the
period of normalization and quasi-socialism
This craft was on the brink of extinction and
so I decided to revive this family tradition
I think we have something to show the
world and also something to write about
The craft of blacksmithing today could
be said to move in two such planes
It's actually that link to the
original old commercial drone industry
Then there is another position in
the trade which tries people who do
They try to follow the tradition
they must know those techniques
Ale they are trying to do new things in
a new era Today people
are very creative
They really come with various artistic
techniques thus enriching it actually
as if with new electrical components
When I saw all that could be
made from this I didn't even start working on it
He always comes up with something new for everyone
and I'm making hockey players athletes
I prefer to go alone I run on the treadmill and on the
rollers and so on
Petr Cagan likes to ride a bicycle
again That's how I portrayed him
This is actually a meeting of the
elders Every year we meet there
We always have some theme and
based on that we make something
It has no limits
There is always something new that can be done
I don't have to repeat those things and that pleases me the most
I've already been here before that they brought
it or I go straight on when I come from work
I have to go now I need to get some thought out of my head
That still happens they want to mess with me
So in this way
This will never leave you anymore
Because if I don't do it for
a while I get nervous
