SWANVILLE, Maine — Twice a year, there’s no doubt where to find the hottest spot in the small, sleepy town of Swanville.
Literally.
That hot spot is potter Jody Johnstone’s 24-foot long Anagama tunnel kiln, which holds as many as 1,000 pieces of pottery and needs to be stoked with wood 24 hours per day for eight days it is fired, which happens twice per year. At the end of the eight days, the kiln reaches a temperature of 2,350 degrees Fahrenheit and needs to be cooled for another week before the potters can open it up and find out what they’ve got.
“I fell in love with the process,” Johnstone, 51, said. “The community and the physical aspects — I like that part of it a lot.”
On Monday, June 27, the seventh day of the year’s first firing, the temperature inside the kiln had climbed up to 2,178 degrees Fahrenheit. When Johnstone opened the door to throw in more pieces of wood, she wore heavy gloves and an apron to protect herself against the searing heat that billowed out. Deep within, the rows of pottery could just be glimpsed, like white ghosts mostly hidden behind the impenetrable wall of flames.
Most of the pottery, made by Johnstone and four other potters, is white and unglazed when it’s carefully loaded into the kiln, she said. The process of firing it can take four days. The kiln heats up slowly, as the potters throw logs into the firebox in shifts. As the kiln heats, the pottery starts to change. Wood ash swirls in the kiln, which bakes onto the pots in unique designs in earthy shades of blue, brown and rust. The shadows cast by other pots and the path of the flame also affect the end result, which cannot be known ahead of time.
Johnstone and the other potters lose 10 to 15 percent of their pottery every time the kiln is fired, but the pottery that made it through unscathed can turn into something much more beautiful than they expected.
“That’s the magic of it,” she said. “My expectations and predictions are sometimes fulfilled but sometimes wildly surpassed. Each pot is unique, telling its own story of where and how it was fired.”
Johnstone first grew interested in pottery on a trip to Japan after college, when she worked in an advertising agency and taught English.
“That’s when I started buying pottery,” she said.
Back in the United States, she learned how to make pottery herself and later returned to Bizen, Japan, to study with Jun Isezaki, a teacher who has been designated one of that country’s national living treasures.
In Swanville, her work follows the seasons, Johnstone said. In the winter, she makes pots, in the summer she sells them and in the spring and fall she fires them. That’s when her peaceful property is a destination for the other potters from around the state, who bring their own pots and keep the kiln fired by day and by night.
“In the winter, it’s so quiet. I love it,” Johnstone said. “But when the potters come, I’m so happy. I think I’m lucky, because I really enjoy my work.”
Jody Johnstone’s studio and store at 135 Webster Road in Swanville is open most days during the summer. For information and times call 338-5314 or go to the website jodyjohnstonepottery.com. The pottery also is available at Mainely Pottery at 181 Searsport Ave. in Belfast and Island Artisans at 99 Main St. in Bar Harbor.