It was from my father and grandfather that I learned how to paint furniture and carve wood, crafts that go back 14 generations in my family’s history. The Sütő family, a dynasty of furniture painters and woodcarvers well-known throughout the Carpathian Basin, is even recorded in the Encyclopedia of Hungarian Ethnography.
To this day, I follow family traditions. After earning a degree in ethnography and cultural anthropology, I returned to my family’s heritage of producing traditional furniture and household objects. I know and cultivate the old-fashioned methods of carpentry. My work concentrates on two different types of woodcarving: carving with a pocket knife and carving with a chisel. To color the furniture, I use homemade paint (casein) that I mix with pigments and mineral colorants. I create a wide array of products from the treasure-chest of a craft that has been preserved in my family for centuries.
I have traveled widely and received numerous invitations for work; my products can be found all over the world. I have furnished a Hungarian restaurant in Copenhagen and the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin, and restored a 200-year-old samurai house in Japan. I am often invited to international festivals as well. In 2012, I participated at the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe, NM.
In 2011, the Hungarian government bestowed on me the title of “Master of Folk Art” , in recognition of my work.
