Eldership artisans
Folk artist
Danutė Gražulytė-Senūtienė
Danutė Gražulytė-Senūtienė considers herself to be the truest Dzūkija people. She was born in the village of Eigelonys, near Pivašiūnai, and currently lives in Butrimonys, Alytus district. Since childhood, her attraction to nature led her to study landscaping, which brought stone compositions into Danutė's life. She composes extremely beautiful paintings and mosaics from the pebbles she finds. In recent years, she has been using clay more and more often to create mosaics out of stones, and she likes to relax in the meadow by collecting herbs.
Her mosaics are mostly made with stones from Dzūkija, which illustrate her own experiences, images she has seen or conversations she has had with people. Stones not from Dzūkija only appear in the works if the client wishes to work with stones found in a particular place, for example, his homeland. She enjoys working when she can improvise, when she has complete creative freedom, but when you have given a lot of yourself to a piece of work, you often regret selling it. "Usually the first thing that comes to mind is the image of the future painting, and then I start looking for the stones to create it," says the folk artist. Danutė also likes to collect herbs in the meadow; collecting herbs gives her eyes a rest from creating stone mosaics, her heart a rest, and she gets more out of the herbs she collects than the ones she buys.
She has always been attracted to ceramics and the mysteries of clay, and after learning this craft, she is increasingly making vessels and pots from clay. Danutė Gražulytė-Senūtienė dreams of combining all her favourite activities to create something unique, close to nature and Dzūkija. She is doing it well. Danutė actively participates in various projects and events, conducts educational activities for children and adults, organises exhibitions.
