Zenon MICZOŁEK (b. 1961), St. Francis.

wood, hand carved and painted; 25 x 14.5 x 8.8 cm
signed on the bottom: MICZOŁEK ZENON / PASZYN

Zenon Miczołek (born 1961) is one of the few sculptors from Paszyn near Nowy Sącz today. He took up sculpture as a teenager, and his interest in it was directly influenced by his grandfather Stanislaw Oleksy (1904-1988), a sculptor counted among the first generation of artists in the so-called Paszyn folk art center. This is a center with a very interesting history. The animator of artistic activity in Pashin was the pastor of the local parish, Father Edward Nitka (1919-1981), who treated amateur art as a tool of social didactics and a form of religious education. He persistently mobilized parishioners displaying woodcarving talent for artistic work. A significant event for the development of the center was the success achieved by Wojciech Oleksy, Mieczysław Piwka and Andrzej Głod, who in 1972 won top prizes in the First Competition of Contemporary Folk Sculpture of the Polish Carpathians in Nowy Sącz. This encouraged more villagers to take up art.

The Paszyn center became well-known at home and abroad, attracting the interest of collectors and journalists. This prompted Rev. Edward Nitka to organize a small museum chamber in the rectory with an exhibition of works by Paszyn sculptors and painters. Thanks to the initiative of the next parish priest, Fr. Stanislaw Janas, the Parish Museum of Folk Art was opened in the expanded rectory in 1994. Among the collections gathered there over the years, the works of the most outstanding authors stand out, which, in addition to those mentioned above, include: Stanisław and Wojciech Mikow, Andrzej Drożdż, Stanisław Poręba, Janina Mordarska, Józef Orlecki, Alfred Miczołek, Maria Jasińska, Piotr Kożuch, Anna Padoł, Zenon Głód, and Ewa Pogwizd from Mystkow.

For Zenon Miczołek, a locksmith by training, sculpture is a favorite hobby. In addition to traditional depictions of the Passion of Christ, images of the Madonna and patron saints, or figures of angels and biblical scenes, the artist also creates figurines of Hasidic Jews as musicians, traders or scholars with a book. Other figures depict domestic animals and field birds. For several years, Miczołek has also been practicing sandstone sculpture. One of his works, the Sorrowful Christ, was awarded a prize in a competition organized by the District Museum in Nowy Sacz in 2014. (Ethnographic Museum in Krakow)