Barbara Eibel, who lives in the United States (more precisely, in Woodbridge, Virginia, near Washington, D.C.), has been buying products from the Artistic Handicraft Cooperative “Ceramika Artystyczna” for approximately 15 years. “I believe this is the most beautifully painted pottery, and it is always of excellent quality. You only need to pick it up to recognize that it is a Ceramika Artystyczna product,” the woman emphasizes. “The company has always cared about quality, and continues to do so, while its designs are beautiful. Besides, not all ceramic plants have suitable kilns for firing, because these products must be fired at a very high temperature to ensure that the glaze is durable; Ceramika Artystyczna has such kilns.”
B. Eibel successfully sells Ceramika Artystyczna products mainly in the Washington area, but, as she emphasizes, Bolesławiec pottery is known throughout the United States. It is especially popular among military personnel, including those from the Pentagon. “Soldiers who were stationed at military bases in European countries began buying this pottery and bringing it back to the United States. That is how the fashion for it began,” the woman explains. She adds: “American women value these products highly because the dishes are easy to wash and do not need scrubbing. This makes work in the kitchen easier.”
“I am surprised that our products sell so successfully at the Pentagon,” says Helena Smoleńska, head of the Bolesławiec-based Artistic Handicraft Cooperative “Ceramika Artystyczna.” “It is wonderful that a product from Poland, from Bolesławiec, is so highly regarded and sold in such a place.”
It is worth adding that the Artistic Handicraft Cooperative “Ceramika Artystyczna” has already cooperated, among others, with Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival, and that the Bolesławiec company’s products are bought by major film studios. What is more, Bolesławiec pottery “appears” in, among other productions, Polish television series and the British comedy “About Time”.