montessori day

today was totally unrealated to pottery, i was a substitute at evans montessori school. again, i love being their. today i spent the afternoon in the napping room, puting kids to sleep, always a challange. feeling not so good today also, one eye swelled shut, and feel generally unhealthy, i really thought the slice of pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwich and bbq chips would make me feel better!? guess not. the eye was probably due to allergies, and hopefully isnt pink eye. well we are of to dinner, braving sallies mt. view again, hopefully lisa wont get strike three there. she hasnt had good luck with this eating establishment in the past. so away we go. smack down tonight! batista bommmbbbbb! shane

sawdust without the dirt

well, kline came over this afternoon and helped with the deck, always a good visit. made nice progress today, got the lower level framed and all the deckboards on and partially screwed down, step stringers in place with no treadsm, hate when a day ends without that glorious finish, i mean to make it all the way to having the stringers up and not finish it seems crazy, but i wouldve rushed those cuts, so best to wait. speakin of waiting, evan is anxouisly awaiting his mother to call. way tired at this point i am, so i put up the pictures i said i would. good evening. S

morining ritual

hey all, well 7:30 am evan is having breakfast, me coffee, been working on lisa's graduation present, a deck! at first, not excited, but now hey i like how its shapin up. lisa is off for a nclex review in asheville, locked her keys in her car again, why cant she do that up here? i will officially start the countdown of re-entering academia, 14 days till my "production sets" class meets at western piedmont community college. no pics today, but will add some soon, things to do: finish deck, run keys to asheville!, return keg(still hurtin), decide what and when to do to kiln, still sitting waiting for me to rebuild her, sorryy lady! later shane

shane is a fool

so, i said i would post more, so what do yoiu get? nothing, micheal kline makes me feel like a fool with all his posts, dont get me wrong, we are fast friends, i just suck at this, so i am at least posting agian. i am also testing the image, it may work on my laptop, so crossing fingers here. today was great, i was parent helper at evans school, we went on a field trip to a local playground, and i had a blast. love being at the school, spms rocks!. then we went to pick up a keg i had ordered for lisa's graduation and they dropeed the ball, so i called the heavy hitter, mike mcfarling, he is hooking us up. then off to lisa's pinning, what a wonderful event, i cried most of the time, tears of joy! tommorow is graduation for her, then a huge party here at the house. see those who know there. off for now, got beer to drink baby. oh saw a man on the news who had his coffin made to look like a can of pabst blue ribbon! awesome

happy new year old man winter

so once again a year has slid by me! wow 2008! so we started the new year off with an overnight low last night of 9 degrees, i know some had it worse but that is still bad.i finished the year off with a firing in the anagama, was pretty bad for me and a couple others, but most faired pretty well. this year is shaping up to be a kiln building year, got one in feburary in floriday and working to secure two more for the spring. Also starting to add on to the kiln shed pour a pad for my new salt kiln and start the rebuild on the anagama, in previous posts i have mentioned i dont like the size i am working with, so i am going to make the anagama one third smaller. I will likely use the salt kiln as my main workhorse and fire the smaller anagama once a year maybe twice once i get things worked out. anyway off to bath the boy, i will try to update more often this year and figure why i cant post images, the video link works so i will try that soon.\ shane

been awhile!

Wow, sometimes as i work in the studio, i notice that i dont get very far, recently the work has slowed to a crawl, i have started various surface treatments, and adornments that have made a 20min session of throwing and trimming 12 pilsner glasses into over an hour! Potters always say fall is their busy time, I have always agreed, what i didnt know was that if one does not be careful, the next thing you know you have not left enough time to make work. i am two weeks aways from loading the kiln, and have only made about one third the pots i need to make, nothing big has come off the wheel since my big pot session back in june, maybe subconscioulsy i am taking it easy? I have wanted to post about whats been going on in my life and kept telling myuself you need to post, then the devil on my shoulder says, hell no one reads it, stop wasting your time. I finally realized that this is more a diary for me as a way to clear some space upstairs, the head is busy and dizzy. Alot of this time away from the blog has been do to personal issues that i hesitate to write down. the rest has been to overbooking myself. October was a wonderful month, we held our second annual spruce pine potters market, this will grow to be one of those shows folks talk about and must attend. Also in octber it was evans birthday and this year we choose to have an actual party with his whole class, it was a blast. So on to pottery, right now i am teaching tuesday nights at the odyssey center in asheville, running a woodfire class, good group of students out there. we will load and fire in early december so it should be a cold one. i have much to think and do, so i must move back to the dusty studio, traditional NC pots are heavy on my mind, wanting to get down to catawba and connect with kim ellington. two kilns to build next year, and i want to redo my kiln situation. the gama is a large beast to manage and i need to rethink my production cycle, three firings a year is not healthy for me. so time will tell shane

jury duty

Spent the day in Asheville jurying for the four county arts councils grants. What a wonderful experience that is, unlike the jury duty you thought of when you saw the title! i did get called up for that once, actually forgot about it and called halfway Thur the day, lucky me, the case was dropped or something. so being involved in arts councils affairs is always rewarding to me. i spent over three years on the Mitchell/ Yancey county arts council board and in the end just felt overwhelmed by my schedule, so to be asked to be involved again was nice. I truly feel all artists should get involved with their local arts council even at the smallest level. i have had peers complain about various aspects of our local arts council, its easy to get involved and put your opinion out there, so you cant complain if you don't want to be part of the solution. good day, Evan,and Lisa are playing ball with nevi as dusk sets, cant miss anymore of it. Shane

back from the mint

ok so here is the dealio, i know about finding a market, i have had this explained many ways, and recently have become interested in some of these arts business camps, I'd like to hear what they say about niche markets and other aspects of the art business world, that's another time and post. the folks that show up for the mint museums potters market are well educated about pots! they know good pottery when they see it and when they walk in that giant white tent all they see is good pottery or even great pottery! This show every year re enforces to me the importance of putting myself in front of the right crowds. the trick now is to find other venues, or ways to put myself in front of good people who like good pots at a good price. All i need to say is that this show always turns out to be good, everyone was smiling and wanted to talk while we took down our booths, that's the earmark of a good show, we were all happy! time to find more like this one. For me one of the highlights of the weekend was when i tried to buy one of Ben Owen's pots and he insisted on trading with me! the other one was when a lady was looking at one of my larger side fired pots and Nick Jeorling walked buy and whispered in her ear, "he is one of my favorite potters". If it were possible i would take the respect and acknowledgment of my peers over monetary rewards any day of the week, but that doesn't put food on the table now does it. Gotta unload the trailer, clean the house, try to stay away from the brown liquor for a while. bobo out

comments now accepted

ok, so i received word that some folks could not post comments, i found the button and now non members of the blogoshpere can post comments, lets hear em shane, still prepin for the mint

Mint museum show in charlotte

Ok folks, now for the real deal, i talked in my last entry about a certain crappy show (yes, i'm still miffed!), but now i am packing up for one of my favorite shows i have done in the last two years, the mint museums potters market. it is an invitational show held at the randolph road mint museum (not the one downtown). they invite the biggest names in clay from north carolina and also some emerging potters as well. this is a one day show held this saturday sept. 8th from 10 am - 5pm, it is definitely a no miss event! I will be shackin up with my buddy michael kline from okra pottery, goin down early to set up, the two previous years i had drove down saturday morning and set up before the event started, which meant leaving around four am! not this time baby! doin it in style, hopefully by 8pm i will be sipping a double jack on the rocks by the hotel pool, waiting for the coming days' excitement, folks start lining up early and when the gate opens its at least 3 hours of pure crazyiness! Lee Love from japan left a comment on the last entry about shows in japan, his blog is really interesting and one of the ones that pushed my buttons to start my blog (the potters journal by ron philbeck was the other). i do believe that if your work is of a higher level of craft and not just run of the mill stuff, it helps emensily if your surrounded by great work. if your in the area of charlotte this weekend please check out this show. will report back to you after the show wish me luck!