“This is the original condition, and a piece is missing here, they cut it off. We decided that we would move the whole strap. (...) The missing part would be produced again. But only a colour fabric would be placed there as a patch. No image will be reproduced. All those rectangles have the same design. (...) Something was filled in, some places were not. There was a committee, dr. Emanuel Poche, Mrs. Letošníkoá, and they were discussing what to do with that. (…) It was repaired, but the missing parts were not added there.”
“I had a cousin, or he was actually the cousin of my mom, and he taught at a school of graphic design. I attended his classes of painting and drawing. I attempted to take the entrance exam for Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM/VŠUP). I got to professor Paličková, who specialized in bobbin lace. Her studio did not attract that much interest from applicants. If I had wanted to get admitted to Svolinský or somebody else, it would have been hopeless. But it was possible to study under Paličková. And so I got there.”
“We were going for practical training to factories. I was going to Letovice and preparing designs for curtains. (…) I designed about five patterns, and they really produced the curtains there. I worked with bobbin lace. It occurred to me that it would be picturesque to use bobbin lace as a kind of an industrial object, and so I created black iron furnace. It was a band depicting Ostrava, and it was hung on chains. It consisted of three stages, and there was a wooden plank on the top and at the bottom. In the front there was a miner, and there was another sketch of a miner at the back. (…) We were in Ostrava and we went down the mine there. It was influenced by that. I thought that from the artistic point of view, Ostrava was picturesque.”
“As the end of the school was drawing near, together with one of my colleagues who was to graduate the year after me, we were thinking what to do after completing the school. Earning a living by making bobbin lace was not too promising. We thought about restoration of textile. At that time, Mrs. Štěpánková was the only person who was doing that. (…) I already knew her, she had made a Sokol flag for our youth team. I went to see her and I asked her how I would be able to start working on restorations. She advised me: ‘At first you need to pass a course of embroidery in the State Educational institute.’”
Jarmila Sikytová, née Havlíková, was born in the mill in Dobřichovice on August 1, 1930 as a child of several generations of millers. She spent her childhood and her school years until the higher elementary school in Dobřichovice. Shortly after the war she completed her study at the trade academy in Santoška in Prague. After graduation she was admitted to the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague to the studio of bobbin lace led by professor Paličková, and she graduated in 1956. After completing her study she focused on restoration of textiles and she devoted her entire professional life to this specialization. In 1964-1965 she restored the treasure of the St. Vitus Cathedral. She also took part in restoration of curtains from synagogues owned by the Jewish Museum, flags from the Konopiště Castle, textiles from the treasure of the Karlštejn Castle, or from the reliquary of St. Maurus. She worked independently as a freelancer until the 1980s when the State Restoration Studios were established, and she then had to compete with them for customers. In the 1990s, however, the State Studios were either privatized or closed down and she became able to work independently again. Jarmila Sikytová also worked as an expert tutor for beginning restoration specialists and she was active in her profession until the age of eighty. She only stopped working several years ago. She lives in Dobřichovice near Prague.
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