For Hiroe Swen, making things from clay has always created a sense of mystery.
The Kyoto-born, 89-year-old ceramic artist says the enduring appeal lies in relinquishing control over what is a very precise art.
"I can't control inside the firing, inside the kiln," she said.
After more than six decades of working her craft - first in her native Japan and, since 1968, in Australia - she said being appointed as a member of the order of Australia had been completely unexpected.
Artists in Japan, she said, seldom received such recognition.
"I very much appreciate it."
At Horikawa High School, Kyoto, Swen studied oil painting, and in 1953 turned her attention to batik textile dyeing, later becoming a batik designer.
She studied ceramics From 1957 to 1961 at the Kyoto Crafts Institute, later working with Kyoto ceramicist Heihachiro Hayashi at his studio.
In 1962, Swen established her own pottery studio in Kyoto and became a regular exhibitor in the National Women Artists' Exhibition.
By the time she turned 31, she was ready to pursue ceramics full time, giving herself over to its enduring mystery and unpredictability.
Swen married Cornel Swen, a Dutch graphic designer and artist, in 1967 and they moved to Australia the following year.
In 1970, the couple moved to Queanbeyan.
She taught ceramics from 1971 to 1973 at what was then the Canberra Technical College, and in 1973, she and her husband established the Pastoral Gallery in Queanbeyan, where Swen exhibited her work for 30 years.
She became an Australian citizen in 1974, and lectured in ceramics at the Canberra School of Art from 1981 to 2000.
Through the 1970s and '80s she visited regional towns nationwide to conduct workshops and from 1974 to 1984 she organised and led the Bimbimbi Ceramic Study Group, consisting of female ceramists.
Other honours have included being chosen as Canberra artist of the year in 2000 by the Canberra Critics' Circle and receiving the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays from the government of Japan in 2016.
In 2013 she was an inductee in the Queanbeyan Cultural Honours Gallery and in 2006 she received an Ambassador Commendation for service to cultural exchange between Japan and Australia.
On her website (hiroeswenceramicart.org), Swen wrote: "Living in a new country, working with different clay, seeing different approaches of other artists to ceramics certainly gave me ongoing challenges ... Looking back, the years that have elapsed seem both long and short. I still don't have a sense of achievement, but ceramics has become my life and my raison d'être."
Swen still makes pottery - most of it one-off pieces - every day.
After 66 years, she said she was still discovering new things.
"I'm beginning to understand now."
