Our island is one of the last preserved oases of mutual connection and respect between nature and human beings.

How to preserve it for generations to come?
How to defend its soul before a gust of insensitive time?
How to live under this sky, on this rock and sea?
What can I do for my island, my town, for myself and my family?
What are the values that make this place between the rock and the sea
so different and peculiar?

As an answer to these questions we founded the Ruta Association, a group for higher quality life on the Island of Cres, in 2000. Our intention was to make life more beautiful for our members and for everyone living on the island by organising various concrete activities in the community.

Our goal is to promote social, cultural, ecological and tourist identity of the town and the Island of Cres. We encourage democracy, tolerance and peaceful civil society, we are trying to revive and preserve the old traditions, crafts and knowledge, promote the production and use of healthy food, encourage artistic and creative expression of our members and improve both their material and spiritual situation, especially under the conditions of life on the island, and through all this we contribute to the overall quality of the tourist offer on the island.

In addition to wool-related activities that we are best known for, we have revived events related to the carnival, Easter; we have encouraged the organisation of the summer carnival and revived the Cres Fair Seménj. By using the techniques of felting and weaving, our members make decorations and objects of wool, and potions from plants and crops. Thanks to their wool products, two of our members have become members of ULUPUH (The Croatian Association of Visual Artists of Applied Arts). We regularly exhibit our works at the Handmade Fest (Pula), Autumns in Lika (Gospić), Špancirfest (Varaždin), and at all other events carrying eco- and etno- prefixes.

We are happy to convey knowledge and experience that we have gained through work on projects to other interested communities.

The National Foundation for Civil Society Development
provides us institutional support for stabilisation and development 2006-2008.

Our Members

There are about twenty members of Ruta (Rutice), among them two men (Rutavci). We can also count on about twenty volunteers who assist us when there is an event to organise. The majority of members felted something, but everyone is at disposal when help is needed. Here we introduce several of our most active members

Snježana

Milica

Marija

Monika

Natko

Besim

Snježana is a pre-school teacher. She works as a kindergarten nurse.
She and Mirjana make up our "children's squad", and they also organise Seménj together.

Mirjana is a social pedagogist employed at the Children's Home in Cres. As if that is not enough MM is a "good aunt" to all children coming to work in Ruta, and there are quite a few of them. The thing that Mirjana most enjoys is felting dwarfs masmalići.

ljubicasta mactapiserija

Mirjana

The second president and the driving force of the association - the voice that answers the phone when you call Ruta's numbers and explains everything in detail. She has employed a lot of energy to develop Ruta and turn it into a strong association with something to say and show. As a textile and clothes designer, she is the only one whose profession is related to the association's main activity.
Since 2005, she has been permanently employed by the association but she is not completely satisfied because paperwork absorbs a lot of her free time that she would otherwise spend working with wool. As a very skilful seamstress, she often uses sewing in the final shaping of felt.

* The Octopus is the work of Vesna Eremija.

Vesna

Nevia

Nevia did not finish a felting academy - she is a nurse. Although she was born on the island she did not come into contact with wool very often. This clearly shows how natural talent finds the strangest ways to rise to the surface. It looks as if Nevia has always had skilful hands, talented eyes and technical excellence to work in felt. Nevia is our first course instructor.

Jadranka

The first Ruta President until 2002, when she returned home, to Pale above Sarajevo. Experienced and sober, she handled the bureaucracy involved in founding an association and did all the buttonholing when the association was first created. Jadranka keeps on felting - she comes here on vacation - where else could she go? At home she has sheep and wool and water for scouring, and even a "modern" wool carding mill - barely 400 meters away. Our mill is 300 kilometres over the hills and far away. She also makes very funny ceramic clocks.
jadranka vuksanovic

Vesna Eremija
1956.— 2006.

The "Big" Vesna has, unfortunately, abandoned us too early after having lost a battle with a long and serious disease. She came to Cres as part of her rehabilitation programme and joined Ruta at the very beginning. Although she was an architect, she did not work with space but - in space - she worked with wool … having discovered a great talent inside of herself for handicrafts and for visual arts, she bravely embarked upon investigating the application and shapes, upon imaginative combining of techniques and materials. Her products of wool made her a member of ULUPUH. She participated in two exhibitions: in 2002. Little Blue Line and in 2003. Text, texture and textile. We hope that working in Ruta and socialising with us made her last and most difficult years more beautiful. Losing her was an incredible creative and personal loss for us.