“I struggle with the ‘come as you are’ attitude of McDonald’s culture”: Karen Swami, a ceramicist in search of beauty

The brilliance of their beauty is not ostentatious, their forms are sober, without ornament. Inert, they establish the permanence of their verticality in a world where the standardization of imaginations disperses contemporary artistic creation. Their use is banal; nothing revolutionary, therefore. "They are only pots," Karen Swami often repeats, not to depreciate her work, but because the hand that sculpts the clay does not operate with an open heart, does not save lives, she argues. Indisputable.

Yet, his well-executed ceramist gestures are charged with meaning and a salutary power: to move, to amaze, to enchant the everyday… Balms for the spirit that give life a grace that our times sorely lack. No need to be an aesthete to appreciate the pieces presented in the workshop-boutique at 32 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, in the ^6th arrondissement of Paris. The window display arouses the curiosity of the garbage collector as well as the senator. Equally, as happy spectators. Some only stop, too intimidated; others dare to push the door. Not always the ones you think. Karen Swami has not forgotten her conversation with a plumber who fell under the spell of her creations: “Your pots are beautiful. But they are not just pots, it is energy that you sell!” " It is not nothing, this renewed life inoculated by wonder: beauty as medicine for the soul.

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In this elegantly designed workshop, where vases, jars, basins, bas-reliefs, etc. are displayed, the kiln and potter's wheel are prominently displayed so as to be seen from the outside to "better demonstrate the craft, to share." The sunny smile of this bubbly brunette is a permanent invitation. Harmony reigns in her lair, and in her production a coherence that runs counter to a race for originality at all costs, often anarchic. Foreign to the flux of trends, Karen Swami's artistic approach is guided by "simplicity, aesthetic balance, purity of lines, archetypal forms anchored in a history of ceramics. In short, a certain classicism!"

As a strong-willed woman, who admits to working first and foremost for her own pleasure, " the fullness of being in her place, of doing things because that's how they should be done," she forges her path with obstinacy and rectitude. Rigorous on a technical level, she is wildly audacious as soon as it comes to "passing through the prism of clay" her inspirations. Shaking up age-old know-how does not frighten her. For her lacquers, only five wipe-on passes are made instead of the fourteen traditionally carried out in Japan. If the anatomy of the pots and vases is modeled roughly identically, their "epidermis" range from the smoothest, polished to agate, to the most unusual, from expected shades like celadon to the most atypical. At the back of the room, the walls covered with samples of enamels in infinite shades speak of the stubbornness of a personality driven by challenges.

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The gaze moves from one creation to another, all different. The color of soot, her "smoky earths" were fired at 1000°C, before being placed in sawdust, whose controlled flames allow for, depending on the type, shades of gray close to Saint-Amand sandstone or a textured charcoal rendering volcanic soils. The sides of some of her "bare earths," unglazed, evoke the streams traced on the sand when the sea retreats. Appearances are deceptive and suggest that this small pot in oranges is nothing extraordinary. "The most expensive is what took me the most time, what was difficult to obtain, this lacquer is one of them ," explains Karen. And this vase whose cracked surface resembles shagreen? A successful imitation of fish leather thanks to the development of a white enamel with a high bone ash content.

Depending on the chosen earths and metallic oxides, a unique aesthetic emerges, where the imagination rushes in. As in a light room, the vision of an animal, plant, or aquatic world invites itself. Everyone has their own feelings. With their strange golden scars, the "Kintsugi" pieces in particular attract attention. Occurring during firing, the cracks are filled, using a Japanese technique, with vegetable lacquer and a powder of the most precious of metals. "What is beautiful is not the gold thread, but the accident," notes Karen before adding: "the repair, the cracked and sublimated cocoon, the matrix forms... All these interpretations are not false, but is this decoding really necessary? Does beauty need explanations?" No inconsistent concepts or prefabricated discourses. " Everyone belongs to a community of culture and values, but here we are mainly addressing a part of the brain activated by emotion," she thinks.

Some people think that objects are silent, but when faced with this charismatic artist who practices her art like "a vital breath," we quickly become convinced that her hands charge them with a contagious positive energy. To explain this creative force, Karen Swami abandons her usual pragmatism: " I am neither mystic nor religious, but when I work the clay, it is as if something superior passes through me... It is the hand of God! I am only a simple custodian." An inspired custodian producing 200 to 300 works per year, for which "the recipients," she assures us, " necessarily exist." This is the case with antiques that wait and, one day, find their buyer.

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And to think that Karen Swami took decades to fully grasp her passion for ceramics, this joy discovered at the age of 5: "I was rubbish at music, average at dance, but in pottery class, nothing existed anymore: I adored my teacher, this letting go, this suspended time. This inner peace that I find today in my studio, and in the gesture." Between intuition and intention, her vocation will have lingered for many years. But the time was not wasted: in Berlin, she worked at Treuhand, an organization for the privatization of former East German structures, did real estate development, and ran a shop at the Saint-Ouen flea market with her then-husband, an antique dealer, very attentive to "quality beauty."

Then, her meeting with the sculptor and ceramist Thierry Fouquet changed everything: "While I was a film producer – Ariel Zeitoun, Alain Terzian, Claude Miller… – and I had two children to raise, he told me that I had something on my hands!" There was no question of going it alone: she passed a vocational certificate in turnery, and did a lot of internships, notably with Christa de Coppet… "I have trouble with the 'come as you are' of the McDonald's culture," she says, amused. "Come, but cultivate what you are, make the most of it. Be demanding of yourself. That's how you're happy. In the reward of effort, consistency, surpassing yourself."

Karen Swami, full energy

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