For the month of October, Maine Potters Market featured the work of Jody Johnstone of Swanville, Maine. A full-time, wood-firing potter for almost twenty five years, Jody built her anagama kiln in 1997 after returning from a two year apprenticeship in Bizen, Japan with National Living Treasure, Jun Isezaki.
Jody built a large kiln, about 24 feet long, which she fires twice a year, in May and October. She does an eight day firing, and the kiln is stoked with wood around the clock by a crew of five or six potters. Two of the potters that she fires with, David Orser and Betsy Levine, are also at Maine Potters Market.
Jody explains: "The large kiln motivates me to make a lot of pots and I spend three to four months making maybe 500 - 600 pots for each firing. I enjoy having the long making cycle. It allows me to focus and develop new ideas for each firing. As I make the pots, I always think about how they will look in the kiln."
She continues: "Most of the pots are unglazed and are loaded very carefully on the shelves, some within or on top of each other and some on their sides to maximize flame patterns. The loading and the firing decorate the pots. The wood is the fuel and it is the wood ash carried through the kiln on the flame, interacting continuously with the clay over the long firing which creates the unique and beautiful surfaces of the pots."
Jody says, "I have a very exacting nature, and though I suspect I would try to orchestrate every last element of the firing if I could, even I know I can't do that. The wood kiln and firing are great partners for me in the sense that they force me to give up the last vestiges of control, and introduce the elements of imperfection and chance that add so much to the pots."
