The Atelier Foundation has existed since 1991 and its goal is to conduct and support educational and artistic activities, creating an environment enabling children, teenagers and adults to participate actively in art. Those activities include batik workshops, which you conduct. How did your cooperation with the Foundation start, and why batik?

I've been cooperating with the foundation for 3 years now. It all began with me looking for a place where I could do work training as a teacher, since I was about to complete a post-graduate teaching programme at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. I was impressed with that place, its artistic atmosphere and the approach to working with children. The batik workshops which I suggested were initially targeted at teenager and adults.

Why batik? I've always liked that technique, as it gives lots of possibilities and produces beautiful effects, even when someone doesn't have well-developed artistic skills - well, maybe one thing that is needed is sensitivity to colour. Making batik is also accompanied by the beautiful smell of beeswax and the process requires concentration because one needs to think over what effect one wants to achieve. So making batik is a good way to relax after a stressful day at school or work.

Do the workshops attract many participants?

The batik workshops began at the painting workshop in the open air in Dłużewo, which is organized annually by the Atelier Foundation. I conducted an optional class there for those who were interested, and it turned out that the most interested were children, actually. It turned out that not only did they have lots of enthusiasm, but they were also very good at this.

It was simply good fun for them. After that experience, year-long classes for children were introduced, and they have been very popular. The list of participants is always open, so we can come, make, for example, one piece and decide if this is a technique for us.

What do children like most about working with textiles?

I think there are lots of fascinating moments here, for example, painting fabric with wax and observing how the hot wax melts into it, but the most exciting experience is dying the fabric. It's only then that we see the effect of our prior waxing. The places which were painted with wax won't get dyed. Children discover this way the rules of colour mixing, and learn how to get a more intense colour and a subtle pastel hue. This can be compared to the emotions we used to experience when developing photos in the darkroom.

Another thing that children really like is that from time to time I conduct classes using our batik fabrics, those which didn't come out nicely, or were abandoned. Such fabric is stiff from the wax, a little transparent and it's perfect for various other interesting activities. We made brooches, fridge magnets, bookmarks, and recently we've made Christmas cards with batik windows and Christmas tree decorations.

And if we wanted to make batik with our child at home, what do you suggest?

We can, of course, make a batik piece together with our child at home, we just need to make sure that the place won't get dirty as a result. We need a piece of cotton fabric, white bed sheeting fabric is most suitable. We simply melt a white candle in a small pot, and heat it until it starts steaming a little. Then, with a brush, we paint the pattern we have sketched, remembering that what we cover with wax won't absorb the dye.

We immerse that in a fabric dye and dry the fabric. If we want to get another colour, after drying, we paint the places we want to preserve unchanged with hot wax again, and the rest we dye another colour. And this is how, step by step, batik is made. At the end, we iron the whole piece indirectly through a newspaper, and eliminate the excessive wax.

For children this is fun, but you deal with batik in your artistic work. Could you tell us more about yourself?

Yes, batik has become a medium of artistic expression to me. On the one hand, I treat it as a unique painting technique, but on the other hand, I use the properties of batik fabric to design lamps, screens and small jewellery. Above all, batik looks beautiful against the light, because the fabric impregnated with wax is stiff, and the colours are as intense as in the case of stained glass. For the time being, my batik works are made in the so-called "meanwhile", so many projects are yet to be carried out.

I graduated from the Department of Ceramics and Glass at the academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, and the main material I work with is ceramics. In my daily work, I'm a ceramics instructor, and also "meanwhile" I try to create ceramic forms. I hope that, with time, I'll have a better chance of focusing on my artistic work.

The Clay Art Studio was established in 2007 and offers classes to children, teenagers and adults, encouraging them to spend their free time in a creative way, by modelling clay, drawing, painting or practising other interesting art techniques. Those activities include batik workshops which you conduct - what is batik?

Batik is an engaging and, in a sense, magical old technique of decorating fabric. It involves applying melted wax to fabric (best if the fabric is natural rather than synthetic) and then dyeing the places which haven't been covered with the wax. The action of applying the wax to the fabric and immersing the fabric in a dye is repeated a number of times, depending on how many colours we want to have in our work.

This very simple, though undoubtedly time-consuming, method doesn't require any exceptional skills or sophisticated tools, but merely a lot of patience and a little imagination to sketch a preliminary design. I say 'preliminary', because frequently the finished work differs slightly from the design.

The whole charm of batik is about the unpredictability of the end result, as it is often surprising even to the batik maker. To fully point out the beauty of the created works, one can light it up with artificial light or use daylight for that purpose, e.g. by hanging the work against a window. And that's why batik pieces are often called "wax stained glass".

Do the workshops attract many participants?

The works made with this technique usually evoke great interest among viewers. It's difficult to overlook batik works - they attract attention due to their originality, uniqueness and unusual colours. Many people, enchanted with batik, want to learn the technique, and make their own works. However, to make a really impressive batik fabric, one needs to summon up patience and prepare for a long creation process.

In class, because of shortage of time, we carry out simplified batik projects. A one-time workshop which is only 2 or 3 hours long allows for making only simple works. But if someone has more time and enthusiasm, they can make a more sophisticated batik piece.

What do children and teenagers like most about working with textiles?

I think what is most intriguing about batik is that we never know what the final effect will be until our work is finished. Each piece comes out as a surprise, and is always a pleasant surprise. The technique itself is very attractive, because it doesn't require an exceptional talent or special skills - the finished work will always surprise us with its originality and beauty.

And if we wanted to make batik with our child at home, what do we need and how should we proceed?

Although the batik technique requires working with hot wax, it's enough for children to be supervised by an adult, and with basic safety measures, this could be fun for the whole family. To begin your adventure with batik, all you need is wax, fabric dye, tools for applying the wax to fabric (e.g. paintbrushes), plastic containers for dyeing the fabric in them, and obviously a piece of fabric (best if it's cotton or linen, but it could also be silk).

Before we start, we need to come up with a pattern we want to have on the fabric. I recommend doing a colourful sketch on paper beforehand. It'll be very useful later when we start doing the thing.

In a very simplified version, the basic steps of batik-making are as follows:

1. Preparing the fabric - regardless of whether it's old (we can use old sheets) or new, it needs to be washed. This way we ensure that there is no dirt on it, and so the dye will colour it evenly. Also this will prevent it from possible shrinking at a later stage of the process.

2. Marking a pattern on the fabric - we redraw or impress the designed pattern on the fabric. As to how this can be done, there are different approaches, one way is to make the drawing with a regular light-coloured felt-tip pen, another way is to do this with a soft pencil.

3. Applying the wax - when the pattern is marked on the fabric, we spread the fabric on some old newspapers, and, according to the design we made earlier, we carefully apply the wax with a paintbrush on all the places that aren't supposed to get dyed.

4. Dyeing the fabric - we immerse the fabric in a dye solution. If we designed our batik to be multi-coloured, we repeat the action of applying the wax and dyeing, bearing in mind that new wax can be applied when the fabric has dried after dyeing. The dyeing cycle should start with the lightest colour and end with the darkest one.

5. Removing the layers of wax from the fabric - the final stage. The easiest way to do this is by ironing the fabric indirectly through newspapers or paper towels. And our batik is ready.

Batik workshops are one kind of creative activity in the Clay Art Studio. What else do you offer?

When I was setting up the art studio, I wanted it to be mainly about working with clay (hence its name). But it soon turned out that the customers' expectations were much broader. At the moment, the studio is open three times a week in the afternoon - one afternoon is devoted to working with clay and the two others are for the so-called various techniques.

These techniques include drawing, painting, sewing, embroidery, weaving, and actually any artistic activity a participant is interested in - of course, all within the studio capabilities to provide the needed materials and, of course, within the limit of my knowledge and skills. I'm also available if the participants need any advice or assistance. Every now and then I also organize thematic workshops, e.g. focused on drawing or batik (depending on what is requested).

The workshops are meant for anyone interested, regardless of their age, but the only restriction is the number of participants (I can fit only 12) in the small studio. As the studio's activity has an experimental character (I haven't found a similar place in the whole country), I think that, as I gain more and more experience, and bearing in mind my capabilities, the artistic programme will be modified gradually.

You graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where your major was art education, and you completed a postgraduate programme in art therapy at the Gdańsk Higher School of Humanities - was it during your studies that you decided to create your own art studio?

The thought of creating a place where people could carry out their own projects within the scope of visual arts originated in my mind a long time ago. When I was still a child, I often dreamt that there would be a place in my housing development where I could meet people full of artistic enthusiasm and ideas, where a more experienced person would be willing and kind enough to give a tip, explain or help. And the dreams were followed by some ideas.

Years went by, my connection with art was stronger, visual arts accompanied me at work, and outside work. I started working as an art teacher at school, and I felt that this was the thing I had always wanted to do - share my knowledge and skills with others, and derive great joy from that. With time, I started to notice the therapeutic aspect of visual arts more and more.

As I was starting my post-graduate studies in art therapy, I was almost sure then that I would try to fulfil my childhood dream and create a tiny art studio, in my housing development, which would be open to everyone. The studio, in its present form and with its current activity, is quite a novel endeavour, and, I admit, a little crazy.

For 6 years you've been working for the Louis Braille School Education Center in Bydgoszcz. You've been an art teacher there - a guide in the world of art for children and teenagers with sight dysfunction. Which classes do the children like the most and when do they learn the most about the world?

For a blind child or a child with a very poor sight, each class is a lesson about the world around them. Art classes help this in a special way. Using the sense of touch, taste, smell or their hearing, the children try to learn about the objects, phenomena or space around them, and then they are given possibilities to convey their visions with different means of visual expression.

Blind children usually like to choose visual-art techniques which allow tactile reception. They like to check how their work came out themselves or to view, touch a friend's work.

It's worth mentioning that these children don't avoid using colours in their works. The works, apart from having clearly perceptible texture, are typically full of various colours. The desire to make a colourful picture is as strong in these children as it is in children who can see, although the colours they use are known to them only from description.

And what are those classes for you?

Conducting classes for children who are blind or have poor eyesight is a great challenge for a teacher. To make visual arts a source of enjoyment and satisfaction for these children, it's necessary to constantly look for appropriate visual-art techniques which will best enable these children to express their feelings or convey their visions of particular objects. It's important to adjust a given task to a child's capabilities and skills.

I myself often develop various work techniques that don't require eyesight, and I have to admit that making art work this way is not an easy task. However, when I see the results of creative work done by my children, many a time I'm greatly impressed. Here the impossible becomes possible, and the persistence and perseverance in overcoming difficulties is worth emulating. Each class is a great life lesson for me, it teaches humbleness, but, at the same time, the ability to derive joy from everything around us.