It's a sight that doesn't really fit in with the Holzolling village community: an empty maypole stand instead of the proud, white and blue pole with the colorful guild signs.
But the village community is currently providing a remedy and is about to renovate the panels by artist Gunnar Matysiak.
Holzolling
- "Normally our maypole should have been replaced at regular intervals in 2020," reports Dominik Wiesböck, chairman of the Holzolling fire department. But since the trunk got into trouble in 2019 and danger was imminent, it was dismantled. The twelve guild signs and the large heraldic plaque, which were created in 1995 for the 1200th anniversary of Holzolling in a village community work under the leadership of the local artist and graphic artist Gunnar Matysiak, have been unscrewed. On millimeter-thick sheet steel, they show not only the local guilds, but also the actual craftsmen who were active in the village 26 years ago - such as the baker Hafner, the electrician Volker Weber, artist Herbert Klee and firefighter Kaspar Lechner. Some of the protagonists are still working today, others are retired or have passed away.
Her pictures with the symbolized tools were restored every four years in parallel to the new maypole.
Here and there, what around 20 children and adults had painted on the steel plates drawn by Matysiak and finally given a light and shadow finish for the three-dimensional effect was replicated in 1995.
"The steel plates are made to last," explains Matysiak, "unfortunately not the color."
Helpers from the Golden Valley paint the metal guild signs
After 26 years, the 80 to 90 centimeter high and up to one meter wide panels had to be completely refurbished. They were sandblasted and primed, the holders were powder coated. Wiesböck then looked for helpers for painting according to the previous templates via the WhatsApp group Goldenes Tal. On the past weekends, up to 20 helpers from all over the Golden Valley have gathered in the gutted stables of the Wiesböcks, mostly women, but also a large number of ten year olds to senior citizens.
Matysiak had obtained durable paint and painstakingly restored the motifs on the computer that he had photographed during one of the smaller refreshment campaigns.
"Unfortunately, the original drawings from 1995 disappeared when my studio was moving." Now he has made provisions for future generations and created precise templates.
"It was a strange feeling to give instructions and advice for an action in the future that you will most likely not be there," says the 77-year-old.
Trunk from 2020 will also be set up
"In any case, it is important for the village community to bring a joint project to the top - in the truest sense of the word - especially during the pandemic," says Wiesböck.
And the trunk, which was felled in January 2020 and donated as a new maypole by a local forest owner, should not have fallen in vain: It is being set up these days in compliance with hygiene regulations and among those who have spruced it up in recent weeks brought.
Not as a traditional, white and blue painted maypole, but as an unpainted July guild pole.
It is not intended to be a replacement: the next maypole in Holzolling is not to be erected again until May 1, 2024.
Everything from the region is now also available in our new, regular Holzkirchen newsletter.
ak