Making with the Season: An Easter Pająk
With Easter weekend approaching, attention turns to what can be made as much as what will be gathered. For this issue, we share a project by Karolina Merska, rooted in material and seasonality: the Polish pająk. First featured in Selvedge Issue 127 Aurora and now available on our website, the pająk is a suspended construction in which balance, colour and structure come together to express the spirit of the season.
At the centre of every pająk is rye straw—light, tensile, and deeply tied to the agricultural rhythms of rural Poland. More than a practical material, it carries meaning. Straw was believed to hold protective qualities, storing within it the vitality of the harvest and extending that energy into the home. Saved after the autumn thresh, it would reappear months later in winter and spring decorations, linking one season’s labour to the promise of the next.
In this context, Easter pająki take on a particular resonance. As older forms were burned at the end of winter—an act marking both closure and renewal—new ones were constructed, sometimes incorporating pisanki (decorated eggs) in place of paper ornaments. The gesture is cyclical: dismantling and remaking, using what remains to articulate what is to come. Structure and symbolism are inseparable.
While coloured paper and later embellishments introduced brightness and variation, the underlying grammar of the pająk has always depended on this relationship between natural material and seasonal meaning.
Originally from Poland and now based in London, Karolina Merska has played a significant role in reviving the tradition. Through her workshops, exhibitions and book Making Mobiles, she continues to explore the pająk as both a cultural form and a living practice, reconnecting it to its material origins and contemporary making.
The project that follows draws directly from this tradition: a study in structure and material, and a way of marking Easter through making—where straw, paper and thread come together to hold the idea of newness in suspended form. We hope you enjoy creating it, and that you’ll find further inspiration in the many projects available to Selvedge readers on our website.
How to Make a Pajak with Karolina Merska:
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Further Information:
This 'How To' project is an edited extract from Making Mobiles by Karolina Merska.
Find a downloadable version of this project here, or in the pages of Selvedge Issue 127 Aurora
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Image Credits
All images courtesy of Karolina Merska
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