Community fired up for Sister Dennis Kiln

For Professor Samuel Johnson — former chair of the Art Department and a 20-year faculty member — the Sister Dennis Frandrup Kiln is more than just a tool for ceramics. The kiln, tucked behind the Benedicta Arts Center, draws students, artists and community members together through patience and collaboration, beginning long before the biyearly event takes place and ending far after the conclusion.

“On a semester basis, we need to prepare all the wood — organize it, split it, and stack it,” Johnson said. “Then we schedule the firing, coordinating with classes, students, and visiting artists.”

Two such artists are Mitch Iburg and Zoë Powell, who run Studio Alluvium, their workspace and showroom based in St. Paul. They came to visit the kiln and help volunteer and also contributed their own works to fire.

“Having so many people to help out makes the firing so much more enjoyable,” Iburg said. “The extra energy and teamwork creates a totally different vibe, and that’s really one of the special things about kilns like this in academic settings.”

The kiln itself is a massive, brick-built structure. It was built in 2012 by Johnson and named after Sister Dennis Frandrup, who was a professor of ceramics at CSB from 1973 to 2005. It takes days to reach the right temperature, sometimes over 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit, and the fire must be tended around the clock. Students work in shifts day and night, feeding the kiln with logs from the SJU arboretum split by various volunteers.

“It’s a great opportunity on campus,” Alea Kroeten, a senior at CSB and one of the students working at the kiln, said. “It’s amazing to see a mix of amateur and professional pottery sharing a space.”

Another aspect of a wood-firing kiln such as this is the unpredictability of the results. Ash settles unevenly, the flames leave traces of orange and green, and no two pieces of pottery emerge in the same way. It challenges the assumption of control.

The experience that’s present at the kiln is transformative. It’s not just a site of creation, but of inquiry. It questions traditional values about order, about beauty, and about how we think things should be in this world. People participate in a process that has existed for hundreds of years, yet their work emerges into the world of contemporary art, bringing a sense of interconnection within the past, present and future.

“It parallels the Benedictine tradition—something ancient and rooted in history, yet constantly engaging with modernity,” Johnson said. By the end of the firing of the Sister Dennis Frandrup Kiln, it holds more than finished ceramics. Each piece of art reflects a convergence of effort, tradition and risk — and the impact on the community of students at CSB+SJU.

“Students get to talk to artists. They get to handle those pieces. And their encounters aren’t just through images on a screen or by trying it themselves in the studio,” Johnson said. “It’s the real thing. It’s where learning, art and life all meet.”