The Creative Eye at the Frankopan Castle was a workshop intended to introduce the participants to another type of handcraft: candle making.
The workshop was held on the 19th and 20th of May 2018 in co-operation with the creative collective Kreativno Oko, consisting of Ksenija and Tomislav Nakić Alfirević. Ksenija and Tomislav have been engaged in candle production for more than twenty years. During the two-day workshop, they for the first time assumed the roles of mentors to a group of children and were very skillful and dedicated in sharing their experiences, knowledge and skills related to candle making. The children had the opportunity to get acquainted with artists who, with the help of their vision and creative energy, created something quite new and different out of a traditional kind of manual work. Through practical work, children had the opportunity to get acquainted with the different techniques and approaches to making candles and learn how to independently create candles.
In order to make the environment fit the theme of the workshop, we cooperated with the Frankopan Castle Nova Kraljevica, which houses the Visitor Center of the cultural-tourist route Ways of the Frankopans. Thanks to the hospitality of the Visitor Center and the Croatian music society Zvjezda Danica, who had generously given us their workshop space, we had secured fantastic work conditions, but also took advantage of the opportunity to get to know more about the heritage of the Frankopans and Zrinskis in our county, as well as the activity of the Visitor Center itself “whose role is the valuation, restoration, preservation, protection and innovative interpretation of the 17 Frankopan castles and three sacral buildings.
Thanks to the vicinity of the promenades, the beaches and the greenery, the children had a chance to explore Kraljevica and collect various environmental materials that could then be used in their candle making. With Tomislav and Ksenija we had the opportunity to talk about the source of their inspiration and the connection of their artwork to nature, in which they often spend time and find the ideas and elements that then pass into their candles, each of which is different and unique – unique for itself, formed without a mold in order to create a unique atmosphere in the space it occupies.
Each workshop attendant had the opportunity to make two candles using different techniques. Using different candle making techniques, the aim was to provide participants with an overview of the wide range of possibilities that this technique offers to the individual. In addition to the techniques themselves, workshop participants had the opportunity to explore and combine the use of different materials (wood, shells, glass, stone, sand, etc.), colors (whose shades they had the opportunity to independently select and mix) and the molds that they could collect independently by recycling suitable packaging which is commonly used in the household or, on the other hand, make them themselves out of sand.
The results of the workshop were dozens of unique candles that the participants brought to their homes.