Textile World until 2020 s I began my work as an ethnologist in 1975. Furthermore, full of enthusiasm whole career and still, don’t give up!
Textile World until 2020 s in my life: I always aspire to professional achievements giving my best to fulfill any innovative idea. The difference is that now I do not do it out of the obligation of employment, but more in persistence in fulfilling my goals.
I was very close to Textile skills since my early childhood
I had a real experience of tradition in the countryside in my early childhood. Since I grew up on the river Morava, for example, I bathed there playing around the melting pot while the older ones worked with hemp tow.
Having started my life in the world of textiles, was through consciousness of my early childhood. In the winter I slept to the rhythm of the blunt blows of the beater of the weaving loom. Even echoes crept into my dreams as Grandma squeezed the woven weft behind her loom.
My grandmother-aunt Stanija Branković (born in 1919) sometimes wove the whole night. And through my dreams flowed the muffled echo of the blunt blows of the hills in her strong hands.
She was often awake early in the morning with her sleepless face. At the same time overjoyed because she was looking at the new two or three palms the length of the new fabric. I didn’t quite understand what exactly happened, but I felt, that for her, the new weave was worth working all night without sleep.
Although sleepless, Grandma Stanija went for other daily duties about fireplaces, meals, and livestock in the yard.
Weaver for the day shift, my great-grandmother Ljubica
My great-grandmother Ljubica was a weaver for the day shift when the loom was empty. She could set up the warp at the loom for her own weaves. At poor daily light in winter, I felt the energy in the old woman’s scrawny, tough body. She briskly created a loud rhythmic creak of the loom. And if stopping for a while, when the wooden device fell silent. It was her chance when would happily measure how much she had woven with her palm laid on the new woven fabric.
Two pairs of beautiful woolen bedspreads as a dowry for me!
They both told me that they had started preparing a dowry for me as well. I remember, asserting the words, about finishing two pairs of beautiful woolen bedspreads for my dowry. But I’ve never seen them. Even now I don’t know did they joke with me, or give me hope a little in advance about plans for me. If my rugs really existed, may possibly be in the closed women`s secret chest. This is the only place that was always locked, women were keeping all of their personal valued property. Each woman had her own chest that she brought with her as a dowry. As long as the owner is alive, that content remains forbidden to anyone else’s eyes.
I am still now with this dilemma, forever. Because I have left the village and its standards, intimacies, and even mysteries for the sake of beginning school. They slowly faded in my efforts to fit into the new private and social milieu. School and peers suppressed the folklore of my childhood.
The moment when I chose the Study of Ethnology, instead of Art history
In September 1969, I came to Belgrade with the intention of applying for an art history degree. I gained an excellent foundation in my previous schooling. But, at this moment, after many years lasted, a lot of images in my memory came back. This was why I exactly knew how and which decision I could make. And I did it.
What happened at the check-in counter on my key moment occasion?
Although almost facing reforms, the traditional program with the study of rural folk culture the Department still adhered to that concept. However, most of the freshmen at the Faculty studies were from Belgrade, many from “the circle of traffic line No. two”. Mr. Andrejić was believing they did not even step out into some “interior” region of Serbia.
All in all, that bothered Mr. Ljubomir Andrejić, the secretary of the Department of Ethnology. He heard me and made some evaluation by watching me from the next counter. As an enviable experienced gentleman, Mr. Andejić could give himself the right to directly distract me from my intentions and help me to choose ethnology.
Because He firmly believed that young people from the interior (various regions of Serbia) were the best potential for studying ethnology, very suggestive proposed such a choice. believed that young people from the interior (coming from various regions of Serbia) were the best potential for studying ethnology, he was suggestive. And I guess he also hit many strings that I forgot from childhood. He brought me back to old scenes from childhood, triggered my memories, and convinced me.
Textile World until the 2020s – but for me is still going on, even now
I got a job in 1975. at The Vojvodina Museum (today The Museum of Vojvodina). Those were the days when I started the “first furrow” in processing the collection of weaving looms in the Ethnology Department. As a referent curator of the Collection of Traditional Handicrafts (Weaving and Crafts) for whole my working life gave my best.
But, it’s time for a new mission:
Textile World until the 2020s – then, Branka on Textiles Blog
By the interaction of individual thinking in synergy, this blog can be a place of support for the development of countless creative syntheses on Textile culture. It is a great ambition indeed, but it is worth the effort.
Best wishes, until the next reading,
Sincerely, Branka on Textiles