The Museum of Ceramics organized the “Joy of Creating” exhibition to celebrate 30 years of Barbara Kozłowska-Trojnar’s creative work. In her brief opening speech, the designer said a few things that gave me food for thought.
The artist spoke frankly, saying that a designer—that is, someone whose task is to invent new patterns and trends—can stay ahead of fashion only where there is substantial money. In a poor ceramics factory, all they can do is follow fashion, producing mass-market items that appeal to the average consumer. This is how Kozłowska-Trojnar described her collision between dreams and reality at the “Bolesławiec” Ceramic Works, with which she began working in the late 1980s and where she introduced around 300 functional designs into production.
The question of whether the Bolesławiec ceramic factories merely follow fashion or can create it is not addressed. At every review of their activities and at celebrations connected with ceramic production in our town, the loudest emphasis is placed on the importance of the numerous ceramic factories to Bolesławiec and its promotion, on the fact that local ceramics survived the crisis of Poland’s transformation—which few managed to do—and on how difficult it is to remain on the global market and how costly unique production is. In general, there is more lamenting than vision here.
Perhaps it is high time to take another step and not merely concentrate on ensuring the continued existence of Bolesławiec’s ceramic factories, but summon the vision to set new trends in artistic ceramics around the world?
Barbara Kozłowska-Trojnar’s exhibition—but not hers alone—shows that we have potential and extraordinary creators close at hand. The exhibition, consisting of functional vessels and unique ceramics, including garden sculptures, is very interesting and demonstrates the artist’s abilities, her exceptional ideas and talent. Virtually every one of her proposals contributes something interesting in terms of form, glaze and arrangement. As Tadeusz Orawiec emphasized during the opening, Kozłowska-Trojnar’s nature-inspired sculptures have a subtle, gentle line and are compositionally considered so that they harmonize with garden vegetation and delight the eye with their harmony of shapes.
I warmly invite you to the exhibition at the Museum of Ceramics. It can be viewed until 5 November 2015 in the Department of the History of the City at 14 M. Kutuzowa Street, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.
Grażyna Hanaf
We remind you of our article about new designs from the largest ceramics manufacturers in Bolesławiec.
