cashin in? doubt it!

so its overdue for some news from me. i pushed through to the firing, for once i was 90% on time, just glazed a little on the day of loading. loading went fine i think maybe 9 hours to load. the firing as far as stoking,climbing etc went awesome. I pieced together a tank (thanks tomczak) and a burner to eliminate some unneeded ash and also the headach of the overnight candle. This rig allowed me and the crew to rest and start up bright and early. pat houston started the firing off at 7am, by 10pm we had finished off the front and started on the back section. by midnight we had finished the back. By far the best temperature we have seen in awhile, 11 down front, 10 bent in middle and 11 down in back. but, at the risk of world wide web embaresment, the cold bubble we are experiencing from the redesign is still with us, so there was some loss by participants. add to that my turqouise glaze went haywire and youget yourself one bad firing. Time to think, regroup and decide what to do. A gas kiln would make life easier but even with my current resources would still be costly. gotta think on it, but as of now a quick heatup in a loca gas kiln and then maybe some alterations to the kiln and try again, i gots tons of wood, so why not? we will see! ok now onto my images, does everyone have to upload, then go back in and arrange the html and put text where you want it? because thats what i have attempted the last post and this one and man its time consuming!!!! this little vase was near the end of my cycle, made about 12 of these, i really like where they are going, unfortunately not many came out as they were mostly glazed with my fucked up turqouise glaze! this is a shot of the loading of ron(corncakes) slagle's scultptures. they came out awesome! dont forget that commision check ronnie LOL Evan hidding behind his UB funkey, the pineapple king, dont ask! A group of small vases with my new amber, i subed out the alberta for barnard, what i got was a cross between amber and lucas, i loved it on vases but bowls etc, emmmm, NO, looks uninviting and with all that barnard probably is! The pitcher to the left was out of the very back, we got some great stuff out of the tail end this time, very uplifting after unloading the cold bubble spot! the vase on the right was from i dont know where, but i like the way the new amber breaks on the texture! sweeeet. well bringle sister blowout today, evan and i will attend that function. and onto school work and house chores. Ya know whats weird is that i have been approached lately by two graduating potters from furman and earlham for apprenticeships! crazy! Bad year for it as business will likely be slow, but when i am in full production i could use an extra set of hands. Hope one of them works out. ok gotta go. later shane

late night with the captin

yhea, so this is me at midnight, loookin goooood mickey, looking good. Ladies?? a nice handle detail, love little handles...smoooooch. something about friday night after long day at the office (a little drama today!) gettin the boy to sleep and just diving into it,,,, PABST THAT IS. put some bottoms on some gnome jars tonight, slipped handles, loaded bisque, slipped mugs and teabowls. and got thru it all with some help from mothers little helper. now closin in on 1am and i am sleepy, got to shout out to maggie and freeman jones down the mt. whats up! bring them snake jugs and pine slabs OOonn man! Evan and I will have to find some trouble to get into tommorow so watch out for us. to all the peeps in the hoood..MITCHEL COUNTY REPRESENTIN BIOOOTCHS. scorpions rock! rock you like a hurricane. bobo out

school BIZ

hey all, i said i wanted to post some pics of school so i quickly shot these. here we have lauren, adam, jen(obscured) loading the gas kiln, a shot of the throwing room, and then the glaze/handbuilding room with glen,phyllis,roxy and molly busily glazing to get theirs in the kiln, good luck. anyway no updates for me, just working, making pots at night, trying to keep the head above water. see ya folks.

moving along

so its about time for my monthly update, sad i know but hey, i try. not really ha ha so the last time i posted i had decided on firing again, i have been chuggin along trying to squezze in studio time around school, lisa's schedule, and of course evan! its been tough at times and i have gotten a little down about my whole situation right now, but i am determined to keep my head up. I had also started to get healthy lately, mostly not snackin as much and not eating junk food, and those who know, know i love my little debbies, peanut M&M, etc. I also started walking and that has turned into jogging/walking. after about three weeks of this i am up to three- four times a week in which i walk about 3/4 mile and jog the about 1 1/4 -1.5 miles. I already notice a big difference in my energy levels! so i am determined to keep this up, also the solitude i get for that hour is just priceless. Ok onto the images i posted, they are from the last couple days. i posted some pitchers freshly thrown and then the after pics, also the single shot pitcher was my favorite of that batch. a detail of a highball cup's texture, i have started playing with variety of stampings on one cup, not ground breaking but i like getting mired down in details. This mornign evan joined me in the studio for a bit of company, but he quickly retreated to the house to continue working on his inventions, constructions etc. Well coming up for me is more school (which is gettin more an more enjoyable! and thats dangerous), firing the first weekend of march, OH April 5th -18th i will be workshopin at Penland school. I am teachign a two week soda kiln building and pottery making class, so that will be awesome! two weeks at camp penland baby! anyway i will try to update with some stuff at school soon as i have never put anything up on here about school so that is overdue. i also have an idea to start documenting my drive and what i do to pass the 1.5 hour journey three times a week, wow! thats nine hours aweek in my truck! time ya just cant get back. maybe one day i will have my dream efficiency apartment over a little neighborhood pub in downtown morganton so that sometimes i can just stay down there. time will tell. so to all the potters out there worried about hocking your wares this year in this bad recession, lets keep our heads up, and noses to the wheel, and if its gets real ugly we can all meet up and use our power of numbers to get thru this! good luck all and be sure to misbehave often love ya captain conepac

what is he thinking!!!!!

yhea, those in the know, know what i am saying, you see the wood a stackin, clay will soon be slappin. Corncakes and I are gonna light it up again. but hey whats a guy to do? spring will be here eventually and i gotta have pots ready as now i dont have too much to show, so back to work. School was finished on monday, so i have been cutting stackin wood for the house hoping to get ahead of the fire now that its been warm, wet, but warm. a christmasy shot of my nieces ,nephews, mom and mack's presents preshippment. SANTA IS COMING KIDDIES! I love the holidays, more than most people realize and christmas music, OHHH SHIITT, LOVE IT! Evan is enjoying his time home since school has let out, He is showing signs of creativity so we are in for trouble. And lets not forget my girl jessie or as her nick name of late, "old bird dog".2009 is just around the corner and i think its going to be an interesting year for me. I think me and Ronnie will fire up teh kiln round mid to late feb. I think i am going to get a gas tank for the preheat this time, fuck it i aint getting any younger. itching to make some pots for sure. then in April I got the penland soda kiln class, maybe even squezze in the NC potters conference. well gotta get on to whatever i am not doing, 0h and one more thing to my local peeps, i say bring on the snow bioootchss bobo out>

tour weekend update

well us folks that have a part time gig and were not officially on the tour scouted out the action to see what went down. seems most reported normal traffic but sales seemed to be down for most, that was well expected i believe. Me? well i did hang a shingle out at the bottom of the driveway, and did manage to catch a few cars over the weekend but only sold a few real pots and unloaded some pots from the seconds table, wish i could have gotten rid of it all, so if your in need of some old anagama pots or even a set of flawed bowls, look me up. I told the family unit i needed to be in the studio sunday for sales but actually only wanted to watch the sunday football games, they knew what i was up to. Evan had a sale! and was an amazing salesman, maybe to forward, but driven! the last few pics are of work out of the last firing and i just thought i'd be nice to put them up, nothing fancy though. hope all are well and behaving themselves. I for one plan to misbehave!! bobo out

at school

no updates, just want to keep this active, sad i know, what have i been doing, alot of nothing probably, mostly runnin around. finished my wholesale orders back in early november, had one snobby gallery who i will refrain from outing here, said my work was not of a high enough quality, i think they were high on something! ha. one thing i have been doing is splittin wood, not for the kiln but the house, never ending as i was behind. mostly school and more precisly my art appreciation lecture class has eating up alot and i mean ALOT of my time. but next semester the lectures will be reaady since i saved them all as power point. the book is a brand new edition so hopefully i wont need to rewrite anythign for some time, just tweek it some. i love western piedmont communtiy college, we have alot of fun and get shit done. my boss courtney long is awesome and we work amazingly well together. i would like to post a picture of the whole clan before too long, we will see. Future? where next, what? well hopefully i can pull off a firing before the rosen show and go do it, money willing! then i will hopefully be busy making pots. April 5-18 i am teachintg a two week soda firing class at penland school where we will build and fire twice at least a cross draft kiln much like the one pictured here. so if your up for it come join me. well its a glaze factory in the classroom, everyone is going nuts, next week is the last full week so we got at least two cone ten firings and probably a few cone six also, fun fun. adding one more photo, rauschenberg baby!!!! Although this art apprec class was alot of work, i did enjoy rereading the textbook, its been along time. hope everyone out there is good, happy, and prosperous, hold tight folks, hold tight. daddy loves ya shane

she's back

well, after a succesful mint show, and bouncing back and forth to school. i managed to fire my kiln, see above. the mint show was a blast, kyle carpenter and i stayed out the luxurious amersuites hotel chain! we stayed up drinking high quality brews and debated life, pottery, and as usual business. love ya kyle! the studients at school have been cranking. i moved into our new office for part time professional crafts instructors. and i get dizzy watching our fearless leader courtny long as she whirrrrs around the studio and school doing more stuff than one person should be able to do! she makes us all look lazy and slow. the pots have flowed very well the last three weeks managed to pump out a few hundred pots utilizing the weeeee hours of the morning for almost every night, by the time the kiln was loaded and lit i got a beer and sat in the captians chair and immediatly went to sleep! thank god for mike" the hammer" smith! he rolled in from ktown after work and stayed up all night candling all the greenware! the crew was awesom pat "the bear" houston came over thursday to load but i was still glazing, he took his time glazing and we put off loading till friday. we rocked out all day and all night playin air gitar and watching the ball game. the north mitchell all stars played tag team and the rump shaker pulled an all nighter with the hammer and i to finish the thing off at four am! our special guests were Rasta Tom, who loves to come in as an anchor,and he and mikeknow how to lay pipe! Ron "corn cakes" slagle had come up to taste the spring creek waters,he supplied pots, help and of course amazing food! so the kilnis cooling and uploaded some sneak peaks will get all the pots out on thursday, lookin forward to it bobo out

HOLY SHIT

hey peeps man over twenty days without a post, well most know i am covered up, swamped, overwhelmed,etc. I decided to move my firing back to early september, just couldnt get things going. i failed to figure in fall semester starting, evans school starting, plus lisa working, and a kiln i had to build, whew... so i got the kiln built and fired for loraine middleton, its a nice sized traditional downdraft salt. the might will back, or as he is known to me, willis, Junior, rump shaker, walllace and grommet, oh the list goes on, went down the last three days to help out. well back on the homefront we have been juggling lisa's schedule, evans scheule and i forgot how much prep goes into a lecture class, at least i am using power point which i think brings me closer to the computer ageness. So now that we have settled into schools, and what not i am focusing on making pots at a break neck pace. some picutres here of a huge gypsy moth nest, i threw my bucket of throwing water/slip on them take that! plus my work lists for the studio and some pots out of linda;s last fiiring. ok so probably see you in another twenty. shane

back from philly

once again, it has been awhile since i posted, so here is the scoop. i had been working on a group of pots for a firing in my kiln which turned into a firing in linda mcfarlings salt kiln, also finished up the summer session at school, then drove up to philly for the buyers market show. the trip was fun and made a new friend in jason probstein, he makes wonderful glass ornaments and other stuff. anyway the buyers were thin at the show but i believe for my first show i faired very well. most folks were very open with their figures and how they were doing, seems it was a tough show for folks. i picked up some very nice galleries and am very pleased with the rosen group! they treat you very well and take great care of their artists. i meet some wonderful folks there also. now its time to make lots and lots of pots and get the kiln fired by months end! lots to do, i will try to post my progress. shane