The translation of the introduction written by the curator of The Ceramics art Museum in Mashiko:
“Horsehair Vase”- this unusual named vase won the Judges’ Special Award in the 6th Mashiko International Ceramics Competition 2006 of Japan, chosen by one of the juries, Rupert Faulkner. This piece is too small to be found among over other 600 pieces, yet if you look at it carefully and precisely, you will find the black burned lines running through irregularly on the vase. Swanica puts horsehairs on her works and burns. It is beyond my understanding why she picked horsehairs. But you can easily grasp how she burns patterns on the surface if we could only think of the principle of Bizenyaki (Hidasuki).
In this small piece, there is another special trick (contrivance) done by Swanica aside from the lines made with horsehairs. Originally, since Sueki, Japanese ceramics were burned at higher temperature with Anagama to be hard and waterproof then finally came to show beautiful green blue ash glaze with ???. Thus, we Japanese have been enjoying the looks of clay/earth and natural glaze which appear after burning. However, the ceramics of Swanica are done at low temperature and that makes the surface look like waxed and reminds us of soft ceramics such as Rakuyaki by Rakunaga Jiro during Momoyama era.
According to Swanica’s words, “Ceramic arts are an act to look for a connection with our Mother land.” The earthenware of Pueblo Indians who used to live in the southwest of America was born from their belief and aesthetic sense. The creation of crockery itself was their prayer and what they created was their way to express their sense of beauty. As we human beings are born on this planet and grow up, we create ceramics from the ground which is one part of this planet. It has to be understood that a challenge to be creative to make a pot out of the ground which comes from our Mother land is our connection between our Mother land
The exhibition of Swanica at Toko must be a great opportunity for each one of us to remember the respect toward our Mother land which we used to hold and now take for granted and to touch Swanica’s view of nature and the world.
