Not Joan of Arc, the heroine of the French, but a native of Bolesławiec, emotionally connected with the town on the Bóbr as a child and teenager. She attended primary and secondary school here, and from here she set out into the wider world, obtaining her artist’s diploma from WSSP in Wrocław in 1980, at the Faculty of Ceramics and Glass. She is currently applying for a position as assistant professor at the Faculty of Art of WSP in Częstochowa. She also teaches at the Ceramic School for children with special needs. She works in unique ceramics and ceramic sculpture.
Solo exhibitions: Wrocław, Bolesławiec, Poznań, Świdnica, Bytom, Częstochowa, Chorzów, Katowice, Tarnowskie Góry. Let us omit the group exhibitions, adding instead that she is exhibiting in Bolesławiec for the second time. Sentiment? That is part of it, too. Her works are held in the collections of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom, the Art Centre – Książ Castle, the Museum of Ceramics in Bolesławiec, and private collections. What do others write about her? Let us quote a passage from a statement by Dr Jacek A. Ojrzyński of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Łódź:
“(...) Her ceramic work is, for me, an invitation to travel along less well-trodden paths, into less familiar lands. Ceramics has always been associated for me with alchemy, the search for unusual recipes, the mysteries and fascination of technology and glazes. In her case, it is different. We encounter typical sculptural thinking, making use of yet another creative technique. The works, generally made of stoneware clay and grog, without excessive use of glazes, with colour most often applied sparingly, draw attention to a subtle sense of textural effects. The works are usually grouped into thematic cycles, presenting various proposals for shaping form.”
And that is all the quotations. ANNA STAWIARSKA is undoubtedly an outstanding individuality, an extraordinary, sensitive, subtle and unique artist, devoted to ceramic art not by reproducing objectively existing reality, but by creating her own, individual, unique and deeply personal forms. She devoted herself to the “art of fire” with the passion characteristic of young people, driven more by an impulse of the heart than by calculation and cold deliberation. Perhaps that is why she created beautiful, inwardly spiritual works, astonishing in the flights of their imagination and the accuracy of their observation, enriched by artistic craftsmanship, distinguished not merely by texture, composition or conception, but by the warmth of her own personality, feelings and aesthetic experiences. When Bolesławiec friends crowned her with a wreath of red rowan berries on the day the exhibition entitled “ABOUT STONE, CONTINUED ...” opened, I was not quite sure what to admire: the modesty of the author of the beautiful sculptural works, who did not want to speak, or the rich harvest presented at the exhibition in the Museum of Ceramics. My admiration—I consciously use this word—was aroused not only by the stone masterpieces, complex associations with still life, but also by the ceramic paintings—a tribute to the Tatra Mountains and to the Creator of the mountains’ dazzling beauty. One must be a poet, and a poet of great stature, to render such a beautiful tribute to the captivating landscape of one’s native mountains... She is an artist—the muse of poetry and creative passion, spiritual and soaring above the ordinary, as in Romanticism. Through the quality of her beautiful works, she has at the same time inscribed herself in the present day, in the artistically sensitive and turbulent close of our century. Her talent is a rare gift from the gods, those of Mount Olympus. This is something one may envy her, while offering sincere congratulations and expressions of appreciation. May she enjoy a hundred years of such magnificent creativity, Mrs Ala!