St. John's Pottery begins the 17th firing of the Johanna Kiln - St. Cloud news, weather & sports

COLLEGEVILLE — Community, earth and fire combined on the crisp fall afternoon of Friday, Oct. 11, at St. John’s University in Collegeville for St. John’s Pottery's 17th firing of the Johanna Kiln.

For 10 days, people feed the fire in the wood-burning kiln — the largest of its kind in North America — getting the temperature to nearly 2,500 degrees.

People come from all over the world to get the chance to fire a piece in the kiln. This year’s batch includes the work of 30 artists from 13 states and several countries.

Richard Bresnahan is the founder, director and artist-in-residence of St. John’s Pottery, which is behind the firing.

“There's no place like it in all of America,” Bresnahan said. “There’s no other kiln like it … This is three totally different styles of firing, and so they get very different results that you can't get anyplace else in the world. It's this clay speaking. It’s this environment speaking, and it's the kiln speaking.”

There are other wood-burning kilns, but the Johanna kiln has three chambers that perform different tasks, including a Tanegashima chamber that uses fire to make unique markings on the ceramics.

The results are stunning as seen in this Tanegashima Teapot, made by Bresnahan in the 10th firing of the kiln.

The firing, which happens every two years, is quite an undertaking. The kiln can fire up to 12,000 works of pottery and sculpture, which can take up to nine weeks to load.

People have been splitting and gathering wood for months, with logs stacked to the rafters of the building surrounding the kiln. Forty-five people, working in four shifts, feed the fire around the clock.

Once the firing is done, the kiln is sealed with recycled clay and allowed to cool for two weeks. Then, the kiln is opened, and people unload and clean the ceramics and prepare them for use.

The clay used by artists is provided by St. John’s Pottery, Bresnahan said, because the kiln is designed to fit the clay. It’s all dug locally, part of the program’s mission to be “eco-mutual,” responsible stewards of the Earth and its resources, Bresnahan said.

“(The kiln is) a living organism, and the wood happens to be its fuel. And the gifts that it gives to human beings is the high-silica, sterile surface that elevated human beings,” Bresnahan said. “So we are participating in thousands of years of history.”

With that aim, all the glazes are made out of natural materials. The only wood that can be used to fire the kiln is from the grounds of St. John’s Abbey, from trees that have died, been blown down or are diseased.

The experience of the firing is just as important. St. John’s Pottery apprentices Allison Breen and Carter Slette are among the firing team, as well as some of the artists with work in the kiln.

Others have worked on more than a dozen firings, and they come from all walks of life: engineers, poets, writers and more.

“They truly cannot wait to fire again … It's like a family reunion,” Bresnahan said.

There are two firing novices per shift, Bresnahan said, and there’s a waitlist of people to fill those spots. It takes experience, talent and patience, Bresnahan said.

Part of the firing experience is the food. Bresnahan’s wife, Collette, has spent months planning menus and getting food teams together.

The importance of food is evident in two of the people being memorialized this year: Mary Lee Neu, who prepared Korean meals for the kiln firing for many years, and Raghavan Iyer, who prepared Indian food.

The firing of the kiln is treated as a spiritual ritual.

Ceramics are really a melding of forces, Bresnahan explained. One-third is the human being’s creativity, one-third is allowing the voice of the Earth to speak through the clay, and the final third is the firing.

“If, as a human being, we think we're going to have control over the other two, yeah, we are always disappointed,” Bresnahan said.

The firing is an act of faith, letting go control of the outcome.

“When we light the firing, we have a ceremony because it's to honor the kiln, but it's also for all the artists who have work in the kiln — to be cognizant of that they're no longer in charge,” Bresnahan said.

The ceremony started with the apprentices ringing a bell seven times. After introductions, two pieces of music were sung, including a piece by folk artist John McCutcheon, followed by a blessing from the St. John’s Abbey Abbot Douglas Mullin.

Then, the kiln area was ritually purified in Japanese tradition with rice, salt and sake and lit with a handmade torch. Finally, the community toasted the endeavor using 450 handmade sake cups that were passed out to guests.

This year’s firing is also a memorial to three people who have been influential for the community in past years: Neu, Iyer and Bill Smith, a former member of the faculty at St. John’s and St. Ben’s, who taught Bresnahan and many other students.

An ending ceremony will again honor them with spirit boats.

“We canoe out to the middle of Stump Lake, and we send these boats off into the water to return to the light,” Bresnahan said.

This ceremony is planned for the last day of firing, Sunday, Oct. 20, at about 3 p.m.

“The kiln is a very wonderful maker of time. So we've offered our time up to the kiln, and so it's going to tell us when it's ready,” Bresnahan said.

For more about St. John’s Pottery, visit saint-johns-pottery.org.