Art Faculty Books

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  Kura: prophetic messenger

  Richard Bresnahan

  "In August 2020, Richard Bresnahan's Kura: Prophetic Messenger became the first permanent installation of the Jon Hassler Sculpture Garden on the grounds of Saint John's Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota. Richard is the founder and director of the Saint John's Pottery and for more than 40 years has served as artist-in-residence of Saint John's University and the College of Saint Benedict. The intention of this book is to describe the people, thought processes, materials, and stories that compose the sculpture Kura: Prophetic Messenger. But even this is not complete, because the stories will go farther and have traveled further than we know. Kura: Prophetic Messenger is a teaching sculpture, with a message for the present and a deep well of care for the future"--Jacket.

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  Forty years on : Richard Bresnahan and artists of the Saint John's Pottery

  Richard Bresnahan and Ryan Kutter

  Richard Bresnahan, his apprentices, and volunteers built the largest wood-fired kiln in North America at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. The Johanna Kiln accommodates 12,000 works of pottery and sculpture and is fired in the autumn. The fire is stoked for ten days and then the kiln cools for two weeks before opening. The Saint John's Pottery has embodied the Benedictine values of community, hospitality and self-sufficiency as well as the University's commitment to the integration of art and life; the preservation of the environment; the linkage between work and worship; and the celebration of diverse cultures. (Westminster Presbyterian Church website, 2019)

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  First Body(ies): being an exploration into the use of local materials with which to make photographs including ash, sap, syrup, honey and clay as well as the cultivation and preparation of flax to make paper by hand

  Scott K. Murphy and Sienna Kuhn

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  Alien Images: UFOs, Photography, and Belief

  Scott K. Murphy

  Born from the UFO exhibition with the Arizona State University Museum of Anthropology, this book explores UFO photographs as a cultural phenomenon.

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  Body of Clay, Soul of Fire: Richard Bresnahan and the Saint John's Pottery

  Matthew Welch and Richard Bresnahan

  The work produced by prominent North Dakota-born potter Bresnahan is an expressive and original synthesis of centuries-old craft and a truly modern aesthetic. Apprenticed to Nakazato Takashi, an innovative 13th-generation Karatsu-style potter, Bresnahan discovered much about the intersection of pottery and other traditional art forms (e.g., the tea ceremony), which is evident in his work. Welch (curator of Japanese and Korean art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts) illustrates the potter's compelling story with a mixture of journal notes, recent interviews, and full-color photographs of pottery by Bresnahan and by some of his friends and mentors. The book also features schematic drawings of Bresnahan's extraordinary kiln, based on the traditional noborigama kiln but containing many radical design innovations. The potter's annual seven-day-long firing produces an original and expressive style of earthy, organic forms with warm, unusual colors. Bresnahan has long been supported by St. John's College and Abbey in Minnesota, from his early years as a student to his current status as artist-in-residence. The book describes how his commitment to ecology, local materials, and collective labor and the pottery's contribution to the self-sustainability of the abbey's Benedictine monks have blossomed into a highly regarded and vital community asset. (Library Journal review, March 15, 2002)