Make a donation.
Donations to the Saint John’s Pottery can be designated to:
1) The Saint John’s Pottery (General Fund)
2) The Apprenticeship Endowment
3) The Environmental Artist Program
4) The Heckman Endowment
The Saint John’s Pottery
For more than 40 years, the Saint John's Pottery has embodied a commitment to community, hospitality, and self-sufficiency; the integration of art and life; living in an Eco-mutual relationship with environment; the communion between work and worship; and the celebration and preservation of diverse cultures.
Artist-in-Residence Richard Bresnahan and the Saint John's Pottery work with students, apprentices, and visiting artists in the work of artistic creation, discipline, and research and ecological use of natural materials. These dynamic experiences are framed by questions of what it means to envision and create a sustainable lived system.
Ancient Pacific Rim methods of pottery are combined with available local resources and attention to process, anchoring a vision of sustainability. The Saint John's Pottery enriches the environment and materials that make creation possible. It seeks ways to maintain and develop these things so that the creative process may speak to and span across generations.
The Apprenticeship Endowment
This endowment supports the long-term success of the Saint John's Pottery Apprenticeship Program. The Apprenticeship Program provides formal training to post-undergraduate artists in sustainable resource development, ceramic production, and contemporary art theory, and research practices. Working closely with Richard Bresnahan, apprentices take part in a learning methodology based on traditional models of generational learning.
From 1981 to the present, more than fifty apprentices have received stipends and room and board as part of their apprenticeship at the studio. Starting in 2016 the apprenticeship benefits package was expanded to include healthcare. The success of the Apprenticeship Program is demonstrated by the fact that all former apprentices are still involved in the creative process, working with clay either in a teaching environment or in their own studios.
The Environmental Artist Program
Environmental artists look at the gifts of the earth, and they look at what damage has been done (extraction, abuse), and think about how it might be healed. The Environmental Artist Program supports visiting environmental artists and environmental artist residencies at the Pottery Studio, to further the mission of the environmental foundation of the Saint John’s Pottery.
Examples of environmental artists supported by the Saint John’s Pottery:
Patrick Dougherty’s Monks’ Cradle (2012) Stickwork installation on the grounds of the Saint John's Abbey Arboretum.
Yearly invitations to artists, architects, sculptors, designers, and biologists to lecture and teach students in the Environmental Art and Sustainable Design class that Richard Bresnahan offers to students at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University.
The Heckman Endowment
The Heckman Endowment is named after A.A. [Al] Heckman. In 1980, Mr. Heckman was the first leader in philanthropy, as director of the Hill Family Foundation/Northwest Area Foundation, Grotto, and Jerome Foundations, to initiate grants for the Saint John’s Pottery. He also played a major role in the early development of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library and other Saint John's University programs.
Mr. Heckman had a deep belief in environmental learning and offering undergraduate students and the surrounding community a diverse learning experience. His trust in Richard Bresnahan's work and vision, and his long-term support of the Studio, helped stabilize the beginning of the Saint John's Pottery.
Donations to the Heckman Endowment help defray the costs of the facilities, utilities, and physical upkeep at the Pottery Studio and Johanna Kiln.