Teapot in wonderland

PJ Johnston is merely setting up his teapots and already the scene’s out of control. At 7 p.m., a half hour before start time for his second annual teapot show and tea party at the Jolly Tiger Lounge in Santa Barbara, a clutch of women rushes him for early dibs. What can he do? He gives in, and by 8, almost all are sold. One empty-handed Santa Barbaran kvetches, “It’s like trying to get tickets to a rock concert.”

Most of the year, Johnston is a mild-mannered ceramist, surfer and small-town bon vivant. But these annual tea parties are making him famous, and for good reason. They’re a refreshingly unpretentious blend of art opening, story time and encounter session.

Of the 44 teapots on display, few are functional. Instead, they act as characters in an imaginative, idyllic teapot world of Johnston’s making. Some stand up straight and some lean over. Some are thin and some are fat. Some have long handles and some no handles at all. Each has a name and heart scrawled on it somewhere because, as Johnston says, “they’re all alive.” Alive in print, at least. Each year Johnston writes and produces a limited-edition book in which his teapots star. The plot of this year’s title, “Alice and the Teapot Dream,” involves teapots getting downsized out of their boring corporate jobs and taking advice from giant caterpillars. Johnston reads it aloud to a hushed, receptive crowd about halfway through the night.

With no price list, prospective buyers whisper bids into the ceramist’s ear. “It’s a bit like buying a used car,” says giddy buyer Ginny Brush. This method fosters the idea that the teapots are not being sold--just given a caretaker. “We didn’t buy it,” says Lizzie Olson, cradling a diminutive pot named Hellen. “We just exchanged some dollars for the opportunity to live with it.” It also gives Johnston a certain discretionary power. “There was a lady who was bugging me, so I didn’t sell her a teapot,” he notes.

By the end of the night, each pot finds a caretaker, and a few had even been stolen, an act the energetic artist actually endorses: “If someone is willing to risk one of the greatest taboos of society because they want a piece of art, then they must really think it’s beautiful.”