Following her father’s footsteps and her love for the nature, she creates unique works of natural materials

Although small, our beautiful country Macedonia hides many local heroes who have interesting stories. Today’s story is about our Ohrid heroine Lidija Tanaskoska. Our beautiful Ohrid is a city of many craftsmen, local people who make handmade decorations and amazing works of art. These local heroes deserve their story to be told.

Our Lidija worked in a shop for three years but decided to follow her father’s footsteps and learn the craft he does. Her father is from the mountain village of Plake, where he inherited the craft from his ancestors.

He is a craftsman for a long time and he makes a lot of wooden objects and he focuses on making the things that are most in demand in the domestic market, starting with ax handles, various household items that he designs to resemble to the tools of the past. Here he emphasizes the loom for women, the tools for cultivating the soil, and the traditional peer for the gjomleze.

While Lidija is convinced that to make wooden ornaments, all you need is to be in love with nature. So her love for the nature led her to start producing various wooden houses and other interesting things with materials she collects while walking in the nature and they are mostly dried forest fruits, cones, acorns, dry branches and reeds thrown on the shore of the lake.

For Lidija, the most important thing is that the materials are natural, starting from the branches, to the pebbles from the river and the surrounding area. She says that anyone who goes for a walk can find something interesting from which a unique ornament can be made.

She is a very positive person, loves to communicate with people, she loves the nature and all the activities connected to nature, especially if they are by the water.  Lidija is very happy that after so many years she is finally doing something that fulfills her. She says that the craft and everything else in life can be learned if there is a desire and a will. Every handicraft made with love is valuable to her.

This work is slow, requires precision and requires a lot of patience, but at the end of the day there is nothing more beautiful than the feeling that you have created your own unique work.