Mihály Vetró, felt artist, educator and ethnographic collector, recipient of the title Young Master of Folk Art, was born in Hajdúszoboszló in 1967. There were no craftsmen, artisans or artists among his close relatives; nevertheless, his forebears may have passed on a kind of invisible legacy, for among the descendants of Giovanni Vetro, a church glazier who moved from Italy to Transylvania in the seventeenth century, we find not only Mihály Vetró but also the writer Géza Bereményi (Vetró), as well as the sculptors Artúr Vetró of Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca) and András Vetró of Kézdivásárhely (Târgu Secuiesc).
His creative drive and inventiveness were already evident in childhood. Through his teacher Borbála Fekete, he attended a drawing camp in 1978, where sessions were led by two members of the Nomád Nemzedék (Nomadic Generation), Mari Nagy and István Vidák. With them, a space opened up for free thinking and for experiencing the joy of making objects.
“I saw two adults playing with every material that came to hand as if they were children. Perhaps it was already then that I realised one does not have to grow up… perhaps I do not even want to grow up. Ever since, they have been my role models in artistic work.”
Alongside many other natural materials, it was through Mari Nagy and István Vidák that he first encountered wool and its transformation into felt.
During his secondary-school years, he sought to keep his distance from everything grey, uninspired and tawdry. Much of private and cultural life in the 1970s and 1980s was like this. Small-town existence scarcely differed from that of large cities: he saw hurried people and a complete severance from the past. Searching for his path, he increasingly found in the arts the possibility of bringing colour into his world. At the same time, he discovered folk culture and marvelled at it: elderly people still living on isolated farmsteads told Mihály of times closer to nature and humanity, in which so many values had come into being. Songs, dances, tales, crafts, objects, as well as the knowledge of survival and subsistence, all existed together, within a single culture.
During his adolescent years, he tried his hand at several artistic fields. Edit Vágó, a teacher of physics, and her brother László Vágó began working with felt in Szoboszló, and he joined them in 1984. Meanwhile, after a few years’ break, he re-encountered the Nagy–Vidák pair, who in Kecskemét were already primarily engaged in collecting, relearning and reteaching Hungarian and Eastern felting traditions. The master–apprentice relationship quickly took shape, and it became irrevocably clear that this would be his path, one along which he wished to progress as far as possible.
Why felt? Of the material itself he has said:
“I am fascinated by the fact that this soft, in itself weak wool becomes a strong, resilient and durable object through human labour. I can think of it as if I were drawing, in pictorial terms, but I can also step into multiple dimensions with it.”
Felting was never a solitary activity or occupation; it always required a community – family, extended family, relatives, or perhaps guild companions. Like most members of the Nomád Nemzedék (Nomadic Generation) in the 1970s, Mihály Vetró was guided, when founding workshops, not merely by the aim of recreating folk objects, but also by the desire to revive a spirit. The foundation of this spirit lay in communities that create value. That world, too, had great need of such groups, and the present cannot do without them either.
Thus, at the outset of his career, he committed himself not only to a single material, a single profession or a single branch of folk art, but to the comprehensive understanding and transmission of folk culture as a whole. In this purpose, he was supported by the very similar outlook and spirit of András Galánfi, woodworker, performing artist and cultural organiser, and his wife Teréz Schmidt. At lectures in Debrecen by the art historian Gábor Pap, the reinterpreted presentation of ethnographic and archaeological material aroused his interest.
Once, the Carpathian Basin constituted the western frontier of the at least six- to seven-thousand-year-old felt culture created by steppe nomadic peoples. For the round tents of our ancestors and their furnishings, this knowledge was still necessary; however, following settlement, the tradition gradually wore away, surviving only in the form of a few items of dress (such as caps or cloaks) and some utilitarian objects (for example horse pads or hair balls used as toys). For this technique to take root again in Europe, it was necessary to travel eastwards, and to reinterpret the fragmentary domestic material with the help of experiences gained far away. This pioneering work was begun by Mari Nagy and István Vidák, and Mihály Vetró later joined the circle of Hungarians collecting in the East.
His first decisive experience came among the lands of the Mansi and Khanty peoples, where he encountered the ways in which peoples living close to nature survive even the harshest conditions, and how happy and balanced their existence can be. Later, he also witnessed how families relocated to cities lost all this.
From the early 2000s onwards, the explicit aim became the collection of felting traditions: Anatolia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Kazakhstan – several journeys, different experiences, and opportunities for comparison. In exploring Turkish traditions he was assisted by the master Mehmet Girgic, while access to Kyrgyz knowledge was above all facilitated by Kendzsekan Toktuszonova.
These study trips and ethnographic collections were not only about learning techniques, materials and motifs, but also about drawing closer to the morality, belief systems and everyday lives of the inhabitants of these regions. Globalisation has reached even the last nomadic groups, yet from the fragments of tradition it is still possible to piece together the image of everyday life and festivities from several centuries ago.
“Felt fits perfectly with the way people there think. In European terms they are poor, but in reality they have everything, because they desire only what is truly necessary on a given day or in a given season… the sheep are always around them, their wool is always accessible, their shelter and the blankets used within it, as well as much of their clothing, are thus continuously ensured… felt tents radiate a calm that makes their inhabitants calm. There are no angular details, everything is round, curved, it heals the soul… this is also true of the motifs they use; they believe they can trust in them, rely on them, that they protect them… but wool is also used in healing.”
Another strand of research was directed towards collecting the fragmentary remnants of Hungarian tradition. Mihály Vetró’s artistic work is equally supported by archaeology, art history and ethnography. In the latter case, in the artist’s eyes, the folktale, legend or ballad is equivalent to an original old object, since spoken or sung heritage also appeared in the process of object-making in the past, as form, ornament or central motif.
Successful ethnographic collection requires well-formulated questions, for only thus can useful answers be obtained – and for this one must learn. Alongside the already mentioned Gábor Pap, the lectures and publications of the ethnographer and graphic artist József V. Molnár, a researcher of the Hungarian national psyche, constituted the strongest cornerstones of his theoretical knowledge. From 2008 onwards, his preparation continued at the Nagy Lajos Király Egyetem (King Louis the Great Private University) in Miskolc, where archaeology and Hungarian studies formed the main focus. He obtained his diploma as a craft specialist in Szombathely in 2014, and subsequently, aiming to advance further along the pedagogical path, earned a master teacher qualification in talent development and visual culture at Eszterházy Károly University in Eger.
Professional development is marked by his receipt of the Young Master of Folk Art title in 2001. The award-winning collection explored the relationship between felt and play, as well as between felt and other natural materials.
Mihály Vetró has tried every branch of felting: his works include blankets, rugs, coats, waistcoats, shoes, hats and caps, shoulder bags, toys and even jewellery. Large-scale pieces have become the trademarks of his oeuvre, yet even in smaller objects the influence of Hungarian folk art is perceptible.
It is almost impossible to draw clear period boundaries, for the diversity of interests observable from the very beginning also predestined him to return to several themes, to reformulate them, yet never to become fixed on a single one. At times archaeological material exerted a strong influence; at others, images from journeys to the East appeared on the design paper; at others still, he spent a year or two immersed in the figures of folk tales. It is often said that artists grow more serious with age. In folk-rooted object-making, this seems almost the reverse. As technical knowledge becomes more secure and ever more precedents provide inspiration, experimentation grows bolder. All this, of course, does not preclude the emergence of an increasingly refined style. In his case, this well-honed duality can also be observed.
Good teachers played a decisive role in Mihály Vetró’s life; perhaps this is why, from an early age, he has striven to pass on his knowledge, to discover talents and to guide them towards creative paths. At the Nádudvar Folk Craft Vocational Secondary School and Boarding School, operating since 1992, felt became available as a main specialisation from 2005 onwards; there he teaches together with his wife and creative partner, the felt artist and weaver Anikó Árvai, herself a Young Master of Folk Art. Regarding pedagogical work, he has said:
“I would never have thought in the past that I would have anything to do with pedagogy, but by now teaching the craft has become just as important as my own handling of wool. It has become my element of existence. With us, the student is the teacher’s partner; there is no relationship of subordination or superiority. If my student does not receive my knowledge, advice and being with goodwill, then it is wasted time, which will also show in the final result. I am convinced that if schools attempted to reach problematic, hard-to-integrate children through art, they would achieve far greater success, and there would be many more balanced young people… This is how we approach these students in Nádudvar, and the results vindicate us. It is not necessary for everyone to become a craftsman, but our school provides a way of seeing, a worldview underpinned by Hungarian culture, which helps young people – and also those who join us in adult education – to find their way in this crisis-ridden modern age.”
Outside school, he has frequently given and continues to give lectures at professional forums, camps and cultural events, both in Hungary and abroad. Perhaps his most exciting professional challenge came in 2018, when he was invited first to Uzbekistan and then to the Kazakh University of Arts to teach – that is, to teach back – the felting knowledge that these very peoples had once possessed, but had allowed to fade away in recent decades.
Together with his wife, he has published continuously since 2004; to date they have processed the technical knowledge and history of felting and weaving in several independent volumes. They write professional books for the general public, several of which have already been translated into the languages of neighbouring countries.
Another part of their publications is explicitly scholarly in nature; not a few of them address the international professional community in English, Russian and Turkish.
Alongside printed literature, he also makes use of the possibilities offered by online platforms. He has built a website based on teaching materials he developed himself, and has also made available film recordings of Hungarian and international collecting expeditions.
Mihály Vetró has been an active exhibitor since 2001, presenting his work in more than seventy solo and group exhibitions, from Hajdúszoboszló to Pápa, and from Astana to New York. In addition to participating in exhibitions, he also supports the cause of folk crafts as an organiser, director and curator.
Among professional organisations, he is a member of the Duna-Tisza Közi Népművészeti Egyesület (Duna–Tisza Interfluve Folk Art Association). He also takes part in the jurying of folk applied art objects, and the development of the professional criteria system for such evaluations is likewise associated with his name.
In 2018, the Hungarian Academy of Arts awarded him the Zsuzsanna Erdélyi Prize. Within this organisation, he has been a non-academic public body member since 2019, and in 2021 he was elected and admitted as a corresponding member of the Folk Art Section.
In his creative career, his next plan is the completion of a large-scale, twelve-piece felt blanket series, begun years ago, based on Hungarian folk tales. In the field of education, he wishes to continue the work begun in Nádudvar, organising camps and lectures for all age groups. To carry the news of felt art and folk culture wherever receptive individuals and communities may be found.
In an interview, Mihály Vetró quoted a passage from Attila József’s poem A Dunánál (By the Danube):
“We write poetry – they guide my pencil,
and I feel them and remember.”
With these lines he describes that feeling, that state of grace, which is the condition of artistic creation. In the same conversation, he also recounts the Kyrgyz felt artist, Kendzsekan, whom he asked whether she plans forms and motifs before creating. Her answer resonates with the Hungarian poet’s lines:
“Not at all, it never occurs to me – nothing good would come of that. I let the ancestors guide my hand. I am always the most surprised to see that the patterns appearing on the blanket are always about what is happening to us nowadays.”
Seeing the works of recent decades, there can be no doubt that this working together with the ancestors has been successful for Mihály Vetró. The yurt builders of the distant past would nod in satisfaction; perhaps the Hungarian who has come from the future would even earn a friendly pat on the back.
[2022]