Janka Menkynová worked at the Center of Folk Art Production in Bratislava as an artist, manager, curator, and exhibition organizer for 42 years. Throughout her long career, she delved into a wide range of material groups and created numerous original prototypes of collections of utilitarian artifacts of folk art, contributing to the development of design work at the center. Her artistic work was focused on designing small series rather than individual pieces, with an emphasis on showcasing the utility of folk art objects. The broad spectrum of her designs, reflecting creativity and emotional perception of the surrounding world, aimed to find the purest form of utilitarian objects that would meet the needs and tastes of modern people while respecting traditional materials and techniques.

Between 1961 and 1965, she studied textile design at the School of Industrial Arts in Bratislava. After graduation, she worked as a designer at the production cooperative Vzor in Zvolen for two years. She joined the Center of Folk Art Production in 1967, initially as a production artist, later as an independent development artist from 1977, and as the chief artist from 1993 to 2009. During her tenure, she created numerous designs of utilitarian art objects using a wide range of natural materials such as wood, wicker, corn husks, straw, willow, wire, metal, beads, horn, bone, leather, textile, ceramics, eggshells, and clay, contributing to the evolution of design work at the center.

In short: Dana Kľučárová