Pots and Plates and Cups

We did one of my favourite things today. There are some things I truly love about Minneapolis and living here. One is our pediatrician. The other is Richard Bresnahan's pottery studio at St. John's University.

St. John's is about an hour away from our house, and it's a pleasant drive. SJU is a Catholic university, essentially run by Benedictine men and women (monks and nuns) who are actively involved on campus as teachers & administrators. 70 percent of students are Catholic; students of all faiths are welcome. There is some very interesting architecture on campus and some beautiful gardens; it is a joy to walk around on a sunny day like today was.

My main interest in visiting the campus is the pottery studio, as I mentioned before. I will give you a bit of background information which I admit I am mostly stealing from other websites (how much time do you think I have??) I will list the websites at the bottom of my post for anybody particularly intested in reading more.

Richard studied pottery under Bill Smith and Sister Johanna Becker, a distinguished scholar of Japanese art and a ceramic specialist, from 1972 to 1975, at SJU. After his graduation, Sr. Johanna arranged an apprenticeship for Richard with Nakazato Takashi Pottery in Japan, where the Nakazato family has been producing pottery for 13 generations. After completing his apprenticeship, Richard was named a "master potter" by his teacher, the son of a National Living Treasure of Japan.

Over the past 17 years, Richard Bresnahan has developed the only university program in the United States to fully integrate local and recycled resources with the art experience. All of the primary materials used in the pottery process -- clay, glazes and fuel -- come from local sources. In 1979 Richard identified a major clay deposit (an abandoned road bed at a nearby glacial ridge) that yielded 18 thousand tons of clay for use in the pottery program. A few years later (1984), a kaolinite deposit (the foundation of making porcelains) was discovered as a waste material at the Meridian Aggregates Company of St. Cloud. This material was also given to Saint John's. Together, these two deposits are large enough to last for 300 years, ensuring an ample supply of clay for generations to come.

The glazes used to decorate Saint John's pottery also come from indigenous materials. These glaze materials include ashes from flax straw, navy bean straw, wheat straw, sunflower hulls, wood ash and pink quartzite dusts. The wood burning kilns at Saint John's have also been fueled by local materials -- dead fall from the Saint John's woods and waste wood from local wood products companies.

We visited the kiln today for the first time. It is a forty foot, five-chamber wood burning kiln, and it is loaded once a year in the fall to fire all the 12,000 pieces of pottery that have been created throughout the year. Richard, his apprentices and volunteers have already begun loading for "The Firing" which starts on the 27th of October this year and lasts over a week.

Richard and his apprentices do all the work - they collect the clay, clean it, purify it, press it; they throw the pots (on kick-wheels, not electric ones) and make the slips and glazes themselves from organic materials. They store the pots for sometimes almost a year, then they load this gigantic kiln and fire it all. It takes days to cool, then they will start unloading it. It's really a joy to see the effort and the love that goes into their craft.

Pictures of Richard Bresnahan's pottery
History of the pottery studio at SJU
About St. John's University
Interesting article about RB