Plan Your Visit       Hours & Directions       About Peterborough       Teachers       Lesson Plans       Booking Tours       Contact Things to See       Current Exhibit       Take A Look       Explore the Museum       Hands On       Our Instruments       Gift Shop       Library       Slide Show       Youtube       Archives Things to Do       Calendar       Upcoming Events       Workshops       E-News Signup About the Museum       Description       Dreamer & Founder       Mission       Membership       History       Board & Staff       Partnerships       Grantors Home		Take a Look: Europe Poland This colorful cathedral from Poland is made from the wrappers of hard candies! It represents the Catholic faith predominant in Poland. cathedral Bulgaria This masked figure from Bulgaria (with broom and cowbells) represents the kukeri or mummers who are found throughout the rural areas of Eastern Europe. They come at the end of winter to chase it and any lingering bad spirits away and to welcome the spring and the sun, inviting the fertile earth to yield a bountiful harvest. The kukeri may be playful and they may be scary, like masked dancers in many African and Southwestern Native American traditions. The masks and the cowbells will scare away evil and the broom sweeps away the old. Kukeri Greece You may have heard the expression “the distaff side”, which means “women”. The distaff is a woman’s tool, made to hold raw wool, which she can spin as she walks or rides on her donkey, on her way to work in the fields and back home in the evening. Men skillfully carve distaffs for their wives and sweethearts. Since many men tended sheep and goats in mountain pastures for weeks and months at a time, they had time to create these beautiful pieces of folk art. These two distaffs come from Greece, and you will find cases of these pieces in the folk art museums of Balkan countries. Distaffs Ukraine Pisanki are Easter eggs decorated with colorful designs in vegetable pigments and paints. Many of these designs date back to pre- Christian times, as does the custom of decorating and giving eggs to family and friends in early spring. There are many techniques for creating pisanki. In wax resist, also used for batik, a design is “painted” with wax (crayon works well at home) and then the egg is dipped into dye. The waxed areas “resist” the dye. When the wax is melted off the remaining area shows the original color of the egg. Another method involves using a fine stylus to scratch the design into the already colored surface of the egg: shkirabanki in Ukrainian. Pisanki Russia The matryoshka or wooden nesting doll first appeared in 1899 in Sergiev Posad, a city about 50 kilometers north of Moscow known for its folk art traditions, especially brightly painted wooden toys of animals and people. Some say that the first nesting doll came to Russia with a merchant returning from Japan. Indeed, the shape resembles that of the Japanese papier-mâché daruma dolls and a Fukuruma, seven piece nesting doll, did appear at a toy workshop in Moscow in the late 1890s. Matryoshka Ukraine This bread was given to David Blair and his colleague Katherine Stoessel after they completed a peace building training in Kharkov, eastern Ukraine, in 2005. We decided it was too beautiful to eat or even to cut in half, so we donated it to the museum. Bread Take a look at more folk art: Africa Americas Europe Japan Latin America Oceania Southeast Asia Subcontinent Vietnam When children are raised with respect and curiosity towards other cultures, the world will know more peace and less war. Plan Your Visit | Things to See | Things to Do | About the Museum | Admin | Home | Contact 26 Main Street ~ Peterborough, New Hampshire ~ 03458 Southern New Hampshire's Year Round Arts Community 603.924.4555 © 2010 Mariposa Museum & World Culture Center. All rights reserved. Top