Bennett Opens Pottery Studio for Annual Show

photo by Léo Azambuja

By Léo Azambuja

Ceramic artist Dan Bennett once again opened his house for his annual show and sale, something he has been doing since the mid-1970s. Emphasizing the functional aesthetic of Bennett’s art pieces, this year’s show features new sushi trays and a few other new pieces.

“This is how I regenerate. I sell off stuff and have room for new stuff,” said Bennett, whose show opened Nov. 24 and will last until Dec. 8 at his home in Kalaʻe during business hours.

Last spring, Bennett’s family visited Orcas Island. The sushi they ordered at a restaurant was served in ceramic trays, which inspired Bennett to create his own sushi trays. 

Some of the other new things he created for this year’s show were pizza stones and a variety of casseroles. He made a lot of casseroles and sold a few in the first couple days of the sale. The casseroles can go in the oven, he said, but you should turn the oven on and let them heat up with the oven.

“You don’t want to take it out of the freezer and stick it in a real hot oven. Heat shock gets to it,” Bennett said. 

You will also find a vast array of functional ceramic pieces at his studio, including mugs, plates, cooking pots and many other durable pieces. 

“I want people to know that I make stuff that you should use, whether you use it once a week or every day, it doesn’t matter, but you should use it,” he said. “It’s functional and has some beauty to it.”

The process of creating new ceramic pieces start either on a wheel or on a slab. Bennett then gives additional touches, trimming the edges of the still wet ceramic piece, adding handles to mugs or casseroles, decorating them or adding his stamp.

“Then it gets fired the first time. It’s called disc firing. It goes up to 1,800 degrees, comes out of the kiln and looks like this,” Bennett said, adding the next step is adding glaze, which is made of elements from the earth, such as metallic oxides or minerals like feldspar or silica glass.

“Then it goes back in the kiln for another eight to 10 hours, up to 2,300 degrees, and then it’s finished,” he said.

After it comes out of the kiln for the second time, the ceramic piece is glossy and gains different colors depending on which elements are in the glaze. 

“If you see something that’s blue, that means there’s cobalt in it. You see something that’s red, that means there’s copper. You see something that’s brown, usually there’s iron in it,” Bennett said. “And there’s chrome oxide, which comes green.”

Bennett said one of the things he really likes about creating ceramic art is that there is so much more he can learn. It’s an ongoing process of learning new things, he said, and you can never know everything.

“To me, it’s a pretty humble craft. You’re just using the earth, the iron to create something that’s useful,” he said. “It’s beauty and function.”

Bennett’s affair with clay begun in the late 1960s at Santa Barbara City College in California.

“It was a community program. It started in 1968, and I got the bug. I found something that I could do with my hands,” he said.

He started showing his work on Molokai in 1974, when he lived in Kipu, a town that no longer exists. His studio has moved to his house in Kalaʻe, where he holds his annual show and sale.

Bennett is a retired mathematics teacher at Molokai High School and at the University of Hawaii, Maui College on Molokai. He still teaches but only ceramics for adults at the Molokai Arts Center on Wednesday from 3-6 p.m., and Saturday from 1-4 p.m. He is also a MAC founding member and board member.

 The public is invited to attend the show and sale until Monday, Dec. 8. Bennett’s studio will be open for the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call (808) 567-6585 or (808) 658-9376 for directions and to make an appointment.