Holder of the Order „Gloria Muncii” and the honorary title „Master Faur” the name of the folk master Maria Cristea is currently synonymous with the value, quality, and authenticity of folk costume. For more than three decades, Casa Cristea, whose founder is our interlocutor, she makes with a lot of love and craftsmanship, shirts, and other attributes of the folk costume, which is a real treasure of our nation. He is the craftsman who contributed to the rehabilitation of the folk costume in the Republic of Moldova, cleaning it of foreign stylistic elements.
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| Maria Cristea |
Currently, most professional and amateur folk groups in the country wear costumes made by the craftswomen from Casa Cristea. Discreet, who prefers to express herself through the result of her work, Maria Cristea avoids invitations to interviews; but we managed to convince her to leave us an open door to her soul to find out where her love and appreciation for beauty and authenticity come from.
On July 29, even the day of the Constitution, you inaugurated the new headquarters of the People's Port House – Casa Cristea – a dream to which, as you mentioned in the opening speech, you have been heading for 30 years. What kept you on this path so that you did not abandon it and follow it so faithfully for three decades?
I've done it all my life and that's what I keep doing. I'm dreaming of them. I think I am stronger now than ever and I do not mean physical strength, in this chapter we get rid of time; but I feel capable, strong in an activity. I know a lot of secrets, I have experience and that's not even the most important thing, now I feel it – I see an ornament and I immediately realize what the finished work will look like. There are times when someone comes and tells me that he wants something in one way or another, but he doesn't let me do what I'm asked to do, because I already intuit, I see in my mind the final result and I don't believe it. fit; what is sometimes demanded of me is not what should be the result. It's if you will, intuition and I've already learned to feel it and give it credence, that's what I mean when I tell you that I feel stronger now than ever. As much as I can, how many years God will give me to be able to, it would be a shame not to do traditional shirts. I don't have the moral right to give up, I've been going to this for so many years that I can finally feel them, live them, so I have to move on.
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| Casa Cristea, the place where Maria Cristea works |
What role did the crafts, traditions, customs in childhood play in your parental home?
I grew up in a craftsman's house. My father was a carpenter. He also played the violin in his life, was a schoolteacher - taught manual work, had a workshop and many of the boys who passed through his hands became craftsmen. Being a carpenter, my father "crushed" four girls. There was once a funny story about us, Dad's girls. Once, when my father went out in the village, one wanted to take him by the leg and said to him: „Bade Vasile, you are a master and you have made four girls, you don't even have a boy”. And my father was very retorted and He replied, „Look, my four daughters and I are going to have four grown boys ready, but you have a son, and you are going to change that girl”. My father had two brothers, one of whom was Ion. Podoleanu who, as you know, had a talent for writing. My father was a special person, you loved listening to him for hours on end, but he had a hard time. He went to war, fought in the Romanian army and the first year he was taken prisoner by the Russians in a concentration camp, his parents did the same to him, they were sure he had died, but he returned to the village after the war and our family has appeared. My mother embroidered everything that could be embroidered for the house: curtains, napkins, tablecloths, pillowcases. She also embroidered my christening dress, which I still keep. My parents' generation was one tried by fate, even punished: they went through war, hunger... But it is not in vain that it is said that beauty saves the world, because beauty enlightens your soul. Crafting was the ray of light for their generation.
You started sewing and embroidering them at a time when this was not well seen or modern. Now, this occupation is welcome. If at present the occupation also implies a financial interest, for you it was a way to balance.
As I told you, I always embroidered, from an early age. When I was little, I worked with my grandmother. My mother had no mother, she was orphaned when she was just a child. Her mother-in-law was like a mother to her. My grandmother, my mother's mother-in-law, was a skilled craftswoman in crocheting. She was making a snout that I had never seen anywhere before as if it was being executed on a computer. All the squares and stitches were perfect, so you couldn't believe it was a human hand. She taught me to do horbotica (a traditional element), but I also learned something from her - exigency. I have very high requirements from the craftsmen I meet, those who crochet or want to crochet because it is very important to learn the craft correctly from the beginning. If you have learned to do it well from the beginning, it means that you will always do it that way. My husband sometimes jokes about my very high requirements: „I don't know how I passed the competition to you.” But I want to tell you that, first of all, I have very high requirements from me, I can undo something ready-made, I can I cancel it. Sometimes even my colleagues are surprised that my hand is raised to undo something I have worked on a lot and I start to do it again. If you allow yourself to give something improperly executed, it is, first of all, a lack of respect towards you, not only towards the client. I respect my work and the name I have worked for so many years and I can't afford to let something come out of my workshop that I'm not happy with. This is what I pursue and this is what I demand from all employees - quality first and foremost. And maybe that's how God wanted a more pragmatic man to sit next to me, otherwise, I certainly wouldn't have survived if I had been surrounded by people like me.
Until you get to this point it was a start ...
There has been a turning point in my life, as there is a moment in everyone's life. Maybe destiny wanted to take me another way because it turned out that math wasn't my way of life. Yes, I studied, I graduated from college, I worked at the Computer Center. There were times when I was put in front of decisions, they said their word and the problems in society, it was the '90s, when many organizations closed, the world was left without a job and sources of livelihood. Fortunately, I did not feel very acutely the material deprivation of those years, because I could do everything for the house with my own hands, it was a store where pieces of wool, cloth, etc. were sold, from which I made everything, even linen. of bed. Just as my mother's craft helped her survive and support her family during and after the famine, so did my hands, my skill, and my help. I wasn't afraid of work.
When and how did people start noticing your talent and making orders?
A long time ago. I have been working seriously in this field for thirty years. But I'll tell you a secret, I was in the fourth grade when I sewed a simple suit for a friend and she gave me three rubles (soviet currency) for it, from which I bought a large pan of cheese. This was my first money, I still wonder how I dared to do that.
When and how did people start noticing your talent and making orders?
A long time ago. I have been working seriously in this field for thirty years. But I'll tell you a secret, I was in the fourth grade when I sewed a simple suit for a friend and she gave me three rubles (soviet currency) for it, from which I bought a large pan of cheese. This was my first money, I still wonder how I dared to do that.
Something, however, gave you a push. What?
The first serious work gave me a push. It was a shirt I made for Serghei Lunchevici. I remember working a lot on it because it had an extremely complicated embroidery. However, I started embroidering shirts during the period when the Artistic Fund was active. In fact, the first one to start embroidering a shirt was my sister, who offered to bring me one too. But I told him to bring me two. I embroidered a lot on them, they had a difficult embroidery. When I finished embroidering, my sister explained to me that this was not all. But I only worked at night, otherwise, I was at work, then I had to take care of the children and when my sister told me that I had to drill a hole in them, close them with a key and make them in the neck... I could do these things, but I was exhausted. I said, „If you don't take them out of my eyes now, cut their strings with scissors.” My sister said nothing. She finished them and gave them to the Fund. Later he brought me the money, it seems to me 60 rubles, but that was good money at that time, it meant half a salary! When he gave me the money, it seemed to me that he had brought it to me in vain. With all shame, I told him to bring me more work. That's how I came to embroider, I did it out of necessity at first. But when I saw that he was rewarded, it was an incentive for me. I got involved in the activity and that's how I started working in this field.
To match the rigors, a traditional shirt must contain authentic ornaments. Where did you get them from?
I saw the first old ornaments at the museum. By the way, I want to tell you that I am glad that I was part of the group of selected craftsmen to make replicas of old costumes from the museum, which could no longer be exhibited because they were damaged, this collaboration was a useful experience. I made a shirt with a very complicated technique. They allowed me to take it, I opened it at a border so that I could see and understand the steps to be taken. It was not a simple cross-stitch embroidery (cross-stitch embroidery is a recent one), there were various unknown techniques which, unfortunately, are on the verge of extinction, some have even disappeared. I deciphered it and managed to restore it. God gave me to meet a very good girl I work with, it's about Viorica Plugaru from Bardar, who was an eighth-grade student when she started working with me and now she has a girl who finished college. He is an extraordinary being, who has kept the shyness of Moldovans for centuries. Viorica is a treasure because she does the most important works with her. I had a memorable moment with Ioana Căpraru, for whom I did very beautiful works. She had seen in the museum a traditional shirt that was very dear to her. At that time there were no telephones for you to photograph, no printer to make a copy and sit down to work, to reproduce it. We weren't even allowed to take it home. I took a notebook in squares and colored pencils, Ioana bought some buns and I spent a day at the museum and drew that model, trying to keep everything - the colors, the order, the pattern. Ioana didn't forget the story either, I heard her talk about it at an event. He still has it.
A traditional shirt is not a whim and a self-respecting performer knows the value of an authentic thing and the importance of the image it conveys and works for.
In 2012 we organized the first Ia Festival. In the second edition, I had the feeling that everyone was rushing to me and I said then in a report, when I was asked for my opinion: "God forbid we are sorry that we took it out of anonymity." I was afraid that, following the trends, it would become devalued due to the attitude of people who follow fashion and interests. Because today everyone makes them, even those who made boots and shorts. China makes ii. Your mind and eyes miss what horrors you can see, which are called ie. Yes, I admit, it hurt when I only saw her at the museum, I said she was not right, she is closed, locked, she must be seen, shown. But then it was kept intact, authentic. Some imitations are unfortunate, which are not even stylized. The danger is that these clothes will go from mother to daughter and will remain, will be kept in the family, and, in years to come, other generations will believe that this is what an authentic ie looked like. Someone once brought me a piece of cloth he had found in the attic, and I made shirts for the „Folklore” orchestra based on that very, very old piece of embroidery. The same could happen in many, many years, when someone finds a piece of a coat of this and says, “This is ours! She stayed with her grandmother, great-grandmother ... ”I am most afraid of this danger, but you can't stop the phenomenon.
I think that folklore performers should also be aware of their role in promoting the authentic traditional shirt and the rigors of the traditional folk costume.
Folklore performers are different, some strictly respect the costume and the rigors of the genre, for example, how beautiful are the folk music performers Mariana Dobzeu, Ioana Căpraru, Silvia Zagoreanu! They have the style and the suit from head to toe that corresponds to an area.
Returning to the traditional shirt and folk costume, what else did we have to show the world?
We still have, but we have to go back to the museum and the rigors that an object imposes, to be worth exhibiting. It was a period when many good traditional shirts were made, we had where and from whom to be inspired. Unfortunately, I have worked in newer techniques, the old techniques, as I told you, have come less to the present day and are harder to decipher if you have no one to learn them from. I now set out to face a challenge and work on some older techniques, to rehabilitate at least some. I don't want to discover and decipher, simply, old techniques, I want to transmit them to the craftsmen, to learn them and to use them further, in the „Casa Cristea” workshop I made many replicas of traditional shirts according to the authentic technique and ornament and they – I taught at the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History of Moldova.
I am glad that the Bessarabia Sitting Group has appeared next to the museum, which, under the guidance of Mrs. Varvara Buzilă, is trying to make models from the old traditional shirts. These are ordinary women, passionate about tradition, and their work remains in the family - this is a legacy that deserves and must be passed on. I think we now need to promote authentic take, for the world to realize and make a difference. Ideally, each woman should embroider and inherit.
The source: Maria Cristea „Frumusețea îți luminează sufletul”
