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| this picture and the next five courtesy of Pavel Konečný |
Havlíčkova Borová is a picturesque village with 950 inhabitants, located in the center of the Czech Republic in the border area of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands.
Life and works:
In this village lives Miroslav Stránský, who has become known because he created a rather special art environment.
He was born in 1949 and trained as a bricklayer, but worked as a forest worker for most of his working life.
Once retired he had a lot of free time, which he mainly filled with making wooden sculptures. Around 2020 he made a special creation along a stream with moving mini-sculptures.
The wooden sculptures he makes are not placed near his home, but are situated in the forests and meadows near the village and many creations have also found a place in the gardens of inhabitants of the village.
The surrounding images give a good impression of what the creations look like. They are about as tall as adult humans and are made from pieces of wooden planks, tree trunks and other wooden material that is suitable for being transformed into a creation.
Stránský doesn't paint his sculptures once ready, nor are they treated with a protective liquid. So they are rather vulnerable and will eventually be lost, as happened for example with the wooden sculptures of Frank Bruce in Scotland.
The image above shows one of the last sculptures made by Stránský. It is a creation in memory of his best friend, the hunting warden Pepík Smejkal.
Local hunters consider this work as a memorial monument that can also be used to commemorate others and so they feel free to add their names.
A wooden statue of a woodcutter stands to the right of the monument. The person on the left is Miroslav Stránský.
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Pohádkový potůček / A fairy stream
Around 2020 Stránský started a new, special project. On a spot north of Havlíčkova Borová, where a stream is flowing along a local road, he added to the stream's banks several miniature scenes with a fairy-tale character.
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| this image and the next three courtesy of Justyna Orlovska, from her website Off the Beaten Track |
The miniature wooden houses are inhabited by miniature characters that can be associated with all sorts of Czech fairy tale figures.
A surprising feature of these figures is that they can make movements, which is realized by means of a paddle wheel hanging in the flowing stream.
Due to the fragile nature of the mobile creation, Stránský pays a lot of attention to regular maintenance.
Scenes with all kinds of characters moving on flowing water are rare in the field of art environments. In this weblog there is an article about Vincent Navratil, who made such a creation in the community of Vir, also located in the Czech Republic
Documentation
* Article (April 2024) by Justyna Orlovska about the fairy stream, on her website Off the Beaten Track,
with a variety of photos
* Article (July 2024) about the memorial sculpture, in the magazine of radio Český rozhlas Vysočina
* Article (June 2024) about the creations along the fairy stream, in the magazine of Rádio Střední Čechy, with a variety of photos
* Photo series (2023/2024) of the fairy stream, on the website Mapy.CZ
Video
* Video (April 2024, YouTube, 3'08") by Justyna Orlovska showing the moving parts of the creation
Miroslav Stránský
Sculptures in a forest and creations along a fairy stream
Havlíčkova Borová, region Vysočina, Czech Republic
all elements of this art environment are situated
in the open air, accessible to visitors
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