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Shaner, David
| Last Name: | Shaner |
|---|---|
| First Name: | David |
| Dates: |
2002 (Date of Death)
1934 (Date of Birth)
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| Biography/History: | David Shaner was born on November 11, 1934 in Pottstown, PA (40 miles west of Philadelphia) and he passed away July 2, 2002 at home in Bigfork, MT after a prolonged bout with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He received his BA at Kurtztown State College and MFA at New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He went on to teach at Alfred University, The University of Illinois, the Archie Bray Foundation, and multiple workshops. After finishing his MFA he went to the Archie Bray foundation, in 1962 he worked together with Ken Ferguson and Bill Sage to dismantle the Voulkos-Autio hard-brick reduction kiln at the Archie Bray Foundation and built the first soft-brick kiln at the Foundation. He served as Resident Director of the Archie Bray Foundation and is often credited with having saved the facility; while he was director he initiated the process for the National Endowment Grant for the Archie Bray Foundation, the Archie Bray was the first organization to get a craft grant. After leaving the Archie Bray Foundation Shaner moved to Bigfork, MT – more interested in producing as an artist than teaching. Shaner worked with clay until 1997 when illness caused him to stop his work. He was diagnosed with Lou Gehirg’s Disease in 1995; he believed that it may have something to do with a glaze that he used for close to 20 years that had 30 percent manganese. Before settling on ceramics he dabbled in woodworking, painting, drawing, and theater, but eventually focused on ceramics because, “after you realize what all is involved in the pottery, you soon forget all the other things that are necessary with the other disciplines.” Shaner pushed the medium of clay into two different directions, unified by an attentiveness to natural materials that tells a 30-year story of the artist’s seduction by nature…. Shaner’s work conveys a nearly fetishistic materiality, an obsession with geology and rock-based landscapes that provides source materials for his craft. |
| Related Objects: |
4234.29 (Vessel, Low Bowl Square, 1993)
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