Shaping Stores in Clay and Chaos: AATONAU May 2025

I am honoured to feature on AATONAU,  a platform dedicated to celebrating and promoting talented artists worldwide, in May 2025.

Excerpt: 

Eleanor Swan’s artistic journey is one of transformation, resilience, and an unshakable need to tell stories through her work. Hailing from Ireland, she operates as a full-time ceramic artist from her studio at Russborough House, a stately home nestled in the shadow of the Wicklow Mountains. The historical grandeur of the house, along with its lush surroundings, serves as both inspiration and backdrop for her creative process. Yet, Swan’s path to becoming an artist was anything but conventional.

Growing up in the 1970s, she faced limited career opportunities as a young woman. Art was dismissed as an impractical pursuit, and her father insisted she find a “proper job.” She became a nurse, dedicating 25 years to the profession, eventually managing the emergency operating theatre in a major Dublin hospital. While she excelled in the field and found fulfillment in caring for others, a sense of absence lingered—a creative void she had yet to fill. It wasn’t until she experienced a period of illness that she confronted a life-altering question: If I were to die tomorrow, what would I regret most? The answer was immediate—never having pursued art.

Read the full piece here: Eleanor Swan: Shaping Stories in Clay and Chaos - AATONAU