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

beach blues

well back in bakersville, although i love this town, i have a bad case of the beach blues! i posted a pic of my family unit, thank god it was a big house as you can judge by the number of us in the photo. we had a great time and plan to go back in three years time to do it again. evan and i worked in the stuido today, i slipped pots and loaded the electric, evan made one of his signature scultpures. this one is called dynamite! It is inspired by the myth busters episode we watched while working where they created avalanches (with you guessed it, dynamite). busy times ahead for this salty dog, last full week of summer school, then loading linda's kiln late in the week, workshop in rock hill this weekend and all the little nuts and bolts i need to do to prep for philly buyers market which is in a little over a week. well no time to waste, gotta run. shane

day four peeps

so just wanted to tell everyone that the dreaded day four has come and gone. i say that becuase that is when the freshness of all the cousins getting together has worn off and they have to actually deal with each other. so evan and nate went out with us to get provisions, fighting the whole time, came back, then they split evan stayed at the houses pool and nate and I and some others went to the beach and enjoyed the rough surf(we had a tornado warning like 50 miles south!). then after dinner lisa, holly(lil'sis) her husband stevie, nate, evan and I went out for dessert, well lets just say it went very rough! then on the way home we looked across the sound or bay whatever and were struck by the sunset! wow as we rolled slowly up to our road i snapped off a picture literally no settings just thought do it quick what teh hell, you judge the picture for yourself, i think its fucking amazing for a quick shot. anyway more tommorow. oh yhea we have all decided that MTV needs to do a reality show on our vacations, never a dull moment!

pre dinner show

we had to share our beach spot with these little guys, he is hard tosee great camo! and seagull will snap them up if they are seen. i was glad to see these guys cause we are use to seeing these little sand crabs by the dozen (sounds tasty huh?) on ocracoke. here is a fine example of the little man running with a shark he just snatched out of the ocean, if you believe that i got some property down here i will sell ya! so here we have evan and his cousin nate playin onthe beach ok lisa wants to go cruise the town of duck, so off we go. maybe i can talk her into stopping by a bar. later

goodmorning

wake up people! time for to hit the ocean. its 7am and i am ready but the house is quiet. gotta get going. check in later

alohaehh

just a quickie folks, arrived at duck with the whole family twenty of us. great house, went to the beach tonight, its a short walk, swam and now its pbr time! will take pictures this week and post them, promise. later shane

hello folks

well, justa quick jump in here. went to the saw mill with evan last night expecting to cut and load a bundle of wood, or what would fit in my truck. saw the owner drive by and gave him a call. the good news is he is still delivering but the price has went up some, thats ok and is expected. i always told him he should charge more and maybe the current gas prices finally got to him. we all love milan! our wood man! so got three large bundles ofhis driest poplar heading my way! for you local woodies, he has about six more bundles laying around and plenty of odd old boards, kline? siding? you should go look at it in the field and talk to milan. well gotta go prep the drop area and cutthe odd pieces that have been layin around for several months. i still have a bundle in a half of hickory and black gum mix, i didnt care for it the last timei fired but need to get it cleaned up. got class today, looking forward to school we are doing serving pieces for our dinnerware sets! i am making the lady a couple of cassaroles. see ya in the hood folks shane

one step closer!

wow, so yesterday i built the arch form and crammed, slammed and beat the supproting arch under the main anagama arch. this is actually the way the front of an anagama should terminate. i didnt do this with the first version of the kiln and actually had a pretty loose front end after, oh i think four years of firing. i believe i fired the original kiln 9 times? i'd have to look into that. anyway, before we left for a shopping trip to asheville and a tourists baseball game i quickly cast the keystone and a litle bit of filler in and behind the supporting arch. this morning i went out and dropped the arch form to see how she looked. well in typical fashion since i am not paying myself it may not look beautiful but she is rock solid. I am happy with the structural integrity of the front now, plus the whole reason for this change was to shorten the firing, lessen the ash on the pots, and allow the kiln to be fired in a more neutral atmosphere, and finally to take away about two hundred or so pots needed to fire the beast. Our pot counts usually were around 550 for a firing with a fair number of large pieces to close to 700 for a table ware firing or mostly smallish pots. I found i didnt like firing two to three times a year. The current loading plan will take around 350- 500 pots something that me and a couple stokers can do every two to three months. well now i gotta gather some more wood, andmake pots. the kiln stillneeds some finishing touches such as the fiber and mud, and a new door built, plus the cleaning and washing of the thing since it will be salted. but those can wait, pots and wood are more important at this point. i just may be able to pull off a july firing, so those who want to get in should belly up to the bar now. off to the studio shane

going up!!!!!!!

yet another day out in the smelly cat litter box! yhea the local cats have been using the sand as their personal toilet. i guess a permanant wooden door to keep them out would be well worth the time. yesterdays kiln demolition and begining of the rebuild really zapped me out, so luckily i had two able bodies assistants with me. the man in blue basically threw dirt all day and dug large holes, while his counterpart joe cool just sat there behind his shades with a blank look onhis face. really didint know what he was thinking about so i kept to myself. on a serious note i need to build thesupport arch and then do some castable to patch some holes and i will be ready to fire, except another hundred pots and wood, wadding oh god! technically i added a front buttress wall at the termination of the kiln walls, and a firebox that will accept grates and stillallow for some pots down in the coals. i wanted to rebuld the chimney and open up the exit flue a bit but may just blow that off and see how she rolls. well gotta get cleaned up for the fourth of july. take it greasy.

coming down!!!!!

well here i go, started on the redesign of the anagama today, had to stop to eat and finish some pots that were drying out. i have removed the foundation rocks and the front of the foundation wall, unzipped the arch pretty far back. i found the dirt behind the brickwork very interesting and it smelled like fireworks! funny timing for that smell. i will dig out the very front stacking area and put grates there. i believe the hardest thing will be trying to tie in the new front buttress wall with supporting arch under the original arch, whew! hurts just thinking of it. i will also do the same to the back exit flue area, unzipp it and make the exit flue larger. i need to also take down the chimney, i want to taper it, make it shorter, and redo the damper slot. this will require some scaffolding as the current chimney is 15 feet tall. so far i have removed close to 300 straights and 80 arch brick, assume to get about 100-200 brick out of the chimeny, can you say gas salt kiln!? maybe we will see. ok off to get a burger then back at it. shane

potsarrazi spotted!

well well well, here we have caught in the action, our residnet blogomaniac! yes folks that is the ever present michael kline! i spotted him snappin images for his blog (come on it will be there tommorow for sure!) so the potsarazzi has been razzied!??? oh my my. i followed our specimen around and shot a few other pics, but this one of him playin dad was great! really in action here. we were all up at the penland fourth celebration/ ice cream social. god bless penland for there community support and good times. evan ran around like a maniac as did all our kids, our little town is so nice and the space infront of the pines works so well for family gatherings that we just let the kids be kids. Mark peters and i hung for some time and watched the madness and discussed the finer points of pots, people,life and the difference between busch and pabst! sorry mark pabst is the blue ribbon beer! just kiddin. we did get a kick out of the fireworks and i had been waiting to try the fireworks setting on my camera, worked good till it actually got dark and the shutter speed slowed, or maybe to many pabst and bush? got home in time to square some teabowls and add some surface to them. well really really late, kiln waiting on me in the morning, later s

goins on

well another week gone by in this potters life! managed to work on some pots as you can see. the teapots are the first ones to get my new surface treatments and in the group shot of various pots there is a pitcher that has been cheese cut or faceted with a cheese cutter. the other pics are of our river camping trip i only put up the pictures of jessie and nevi maybe i will add one of evan later, i suddenly feel odd putting him up on the internet? guess there is no harm but its weird. i was scheduled to start on the kiln today but our ex neighbors (across the creek) son has abandonded his pack of dogs and the shelter director had to collect the six crazy dogs. its a real shame when people do this,. i called the polica and lodged a formal complaint and am thinking of pressing charges for animal cruelty. in this county nothing is ever done about this so its probably a waste of time. now that the dogs are taken care of maybe we will just let it go. i also needed to take some pictures of gays redneck beaver damn, not that she is a redneck, but the damn is definitly country in its style. the biggest part of that is all the trash it collects, you really see how bad people still are about their trash!! well evan is itching to work in the studio, he as been making caterpillar houses and even a walle sculpture, which by the way we all went to see yesterday in asheville, if your not in the know of kids movies, WALL-E is thenew pixar movie. its about the robot that cleans up the mess left on the abandonded earth and when a newer bot comes down from the distant earth ship he falls in love,etc etc. wont give it all away, but its a great movie with a green message! i give it two thumbs up and evan said he gives it sixty hundred thousand thumbs up! WOW! thats alot of thumbs people. time to go work in clay. shane

updates people

well for those who do check in from time to time, here is a update. i recently fired western piedmonts gas kiln with my students work, we unloaded today, and everyone was happy with there pots, good for me. been makin pots at night, but very slowly. i will drag my sorry ass out again tonight and actally take images of my latest pots. i moved onto gays rock work to combat the evil beaver population that is eroding her driveway, 10 tons of rocks to go peeps! wanna help? other than the usual i am knee deep in my search for the elusive 1991 geo metro convertable, well the convertable part is needed but would assure me spruce pine montessori schools car of the year since the evil klineanators awesome honda has finally passed on. seriously, the 1991 metro was rated at 43 mpg! and every year after that it got lower until it reached somewhere in the low thirties! and some believe the oil tycoons are not evil, HA! so if you know of anyone sitting on a nice 1991 five speed 1.o litre fire red convertable geo metro give them my info! well back to teh web to search

aftermath

well, i posted that the tour was bad on saturday, and it was even worse on sunday, i have never done that poorly on the tour! it left me in a lurch financially and i am back to the grind of early mornig work -teaching-after teaching work, and maybe i can even get into the studio! i have taken the etsy plunge and we will see how it goes. been asking for tips from other sellers, looks like i need alot of items up and alot of relisting to do! we are getting ready to fire the reduction kiln down at western piedmont community college, i am so excited! cant wait to see how it goes. Well gotta get out to the studio and handle some pitchers, trim some pilsners, and maybe throw some pots too. have fun out there. shane

tour day one

well, ran back down to ashvegas to get patio furniture, went fine got back around 11:30/ lunchish hoped for some traffic. It started off ok, but man the sky let loose around 1pm. next thing theres flash flood warnings, man. so no more visitors the rest of the day. glad i wasnt counting on this tour,(wipes tears from eyes) bye bye. bobo

week in a life

well, its funny, i thought i was keepin up but now a week has almost gone by! so what has shane been up to, well as you know teaching is taking up a good chunk of each day and four days days a week, and the gas is killing me! over 300 dollars in two and half weeks! ouch. so a typical day latley has been as follows, up at 6am and out the door by seven to go do some handyman/ construction jobs, leave for western peidmont comm college by 11:30. teach from 1-4:30, then head home, the drive to school or from school to home is averaging around and hour and 20 mins. once home i do some things around the house, dishes, laundry, cut grass, dinner whatever, then if i can scrape myself off the couch i go to the studio to work usually around 8 or 9. i usually work till my eyes feel really tired, you know that feeling? sure you do. so no ohhhs or oh poor him, its a potters life, not a vetern potters life, a potters life, remember i have been making pots for over 15 years, but only six to seven years full time, so when the economy goes to shit and sales slow down i gotta reach down deep into that bag of tricks and find a way to make the benjimans roll in. not ashamed of admiting that one! after i start pulling long days like these i really start to feel better about myself, i believe i was meant to work long and hard, my father (rest in peace pops!) was a millright and let me tell you, those bastards work very hard and long hours too. i actualy wanted to join the local union he was involved in when i graduated high school, but he would have non of that, he wanted his children to go to college, i did so, but the first two years were a joke! when i had to transfer to a real college i landed at frostburg state university in western md. kickaround and eventually found the art dept. when i declard that major (second or third one!) my dad wished he had let me join the union then baby, he was pissed off. its funny though, he worked with his hand in what my opinion was a craft, as they say "engineers design it, millrights build it." think about that for a minute, when you start something out that you design to build it never goes together quite right? no extrapolate that out to a large power house turbin, or other large scale something or other. yep thats about right. lisa is upstairs waking evan up so we can run to asheville and look at patio furniture! so better run, and end this ramble. s

busy,busy busy

sorry its been so long, wheww! fired of the bowls and platters last night, been running like crazy. i think i may be pushing to hard but oh well, gotta keep up with the smiths, or johnsons, whatever. no pics, but i will get some up some time, maybe after i unload the kiln. i am headng to philly buyers market so i need to start getting ready for that even though its in august, pots to make, kiln to rebuild or make fireable whichever is easier. wel just a quick post, more later

garde time

well i ran out and got some bark chips for lisa's flower bed, then stopped and picked up a friends tiller, lisa is happy since she can FINALLY! get the plants she started into the garden. one of the coolest things is she is going to grow evan a sunflower hut! she planted a circle of large sunflowers and i guess will train them into a canopy. i shot a picture of the garden after i tilled it and am also including one of the deck. LOOK FOLKS, ITS A HUGE LAUNDRY DRYER! the deck still needs some little odds and ends but we like it so far. i did skimp on the lowest deck, instead of digging two more holes i just used deck blocks, it was easier. diggin holes on our property is more like digging watermelon sized rocks up. it plain sucks! just ask will baker about bertha! the 300lb rock we removed. anyway back in the studio tonight to trim platters and start pots for my july firing, yep i have to do it. i committed to he philly buyers market and now the kiln needs to be revived and pots made, no more leanin on other peoples kilns. now the hardest part of the new kiln will be which crew members get to stay on, no more crews of 8-12 with cars full of pots arriving, i now smith will be on, hell been firing together for over a decade now! mike the hammer as we call him. well,gotta get back to it. s