DAVID SHANER – (1934 – 2002)
David Shaner is an icon in the field of American ceramic art. He was instrumental in establishing the Archie Bray Foundation as a major player in ceramics, and he continued to support the Bray after retiring as its Resident Director. His exquisitely formed vessels with their understated glazes are a reflection of the man himself, a man in harmony with his environment and at peace in himself. Shaner was also noted as a teacher, a collector, and a generous contributor to the world of ceramic art and the field of environmental protection; his gardens
which he called his “spiritual work” included notable specialized collections. While David Shaner’s life was cut short by ALS, his legacy continues through the David and Ann Shaner
Resident Studio Complex which opened in 2005 at the Archie Bray foundation.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT – DAVID SHANER
“Basically, I am doing what I want to do and have never done anything else. By competing only with myself, I am not in pursuit of the crowd. Following one’s work is a joy and a challenge.
One learns to do what is in one’s soul – thus revealing the connections between life and art. Although over the years I have become deeply involved with my tools and materials, simplicity of form and process have been my greatest achievements. And while the pots have been saturated with optimism, this has not always been easy to achieve. It is with a certain resilience
I carry the belief that as life is enriched, the work can answer a resounding YES!”1 1. “Artist’s Statement.” Peter Held et al. David Shaner: A Potter’s Work, 1963-1993. Salem,
OR: Salem Art Association, 1993.
RESUME – DAVID SHANER
- 1934
- Born, Pottstown, PA
1952-1956 1956-1957 1957
Kutztown State College, Kutztown, PA; B.S., Art Education Junior High School Art Instructor, Paoli Area Schools, PA Marries Ann Elizabeth Stoner Summer Session, New York College of Ceramics, Alfred, NY
1957-1959 1958-1959
New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred, NY; M.F.A., Ceramic Design Teaching Fellowship and Graduate Assistantship, New York College Of Ceramics, Alfred, NY Shop Assistant, Robert Turner
1959-1961 1960
Instructor, the University of Illinois, Urbana, IL
Bronze Medal, Designer-Craftsman, USA exhibition
1961-1963 1962
Assistant Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL
“Young American” Award, American Craft Council
College Research Fellowship, University of Illinois; summer work at Archie Bray Foundation
- 1963-1964
- Studio Artist and Assistant Manager, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT
Louis Comfort Tiffany Scholarship
1964-1970 1966
Resident Director, Archie Bray Foundation
Purchase Award, XXI Ceramic National
Honorable Mention Award, Wichita Biennial, Wichita Art Center, Wichita, KS
National Merit Award, Craftsmen USA ’66 Exhibition
- 1967
- National Endowment for the Arts craft grant awarded to the Archie Bray
- Montana Arts Council Advisory Board
- 1969-1981
- 1970
- Establishes home and studio in Bigfork, MT
1970-1989 1971-1974
Board of Directors, Archie Bray Foundation Representative for Montana for the American Crafts Council, Northwest Region
1973
National Endowment for the Arts Craftsmen’s Fellowship
Vice-Chairman, Montana Arts council Advisory Board
National Endowment for the Arts Craftsmen’s Fellowship
1976-1988 1978
- 1982
- Luther Richman Award for Distinguished Service to the
State of Montana
1983 1989 1990 1991
Distinguished Alumni Award, Kutztown State College
Centennial Governor’s Award for the Arts, State of Montana National Endowment for the Arts Craftsmen’s Fellowship
Stevenson-Meloy Distinguished Service Award, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts
1992
1995
Elected to the College of Fellows, American Crafts Council, NY Honorary member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts
Diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease)
- 2002
- Dies, July 2, 2002, Bigfork, MT
BIOGRAPHY – DAVID SHANER
David Shaner was born in Pottstown, PA, his father the operator of a coal delivery and concrete fabrication business. Like many families in those post-Depression years, the Shaners were frugal and hard-working, the children expected to accept responsibilities and contribute to the family and community welfare. During high school David became interested in art, and following graduation he enrolled in Kutztown State Teachers College, the first family member to attend college. Shaner received a B.A. in Art Education in 1956 and began teaching art in middleschool. The following year he married Ann Stoner, and, encouraged by his college professor, applied to the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and was accepted. In contrast to the ceramic revolution occurring on the west coast, ceramics at Alfred emphasized a strong foundation of technical knowledge and craftsmanship and Shaner responded to the structured, committed environment. As influential as his teachers was fellow graduate student Ken Ferguson who would be instrumental in bringing Shaner in later years to the Archie Bray
Foundation. Shaner’s thesis work focused on the relationship between man and nature, a topic
that would become increasingly important in his life and his work. After earning his M.F.A., David began teaching at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, at the same time working as a studio artist and selling his work. He also continued to explore new glazes, and it was
during these years that the well-known Shaner’s Red glaze was born.
Ken Ferguson had moved to Montana after graduating from Alfred in 1958 to become resident director of the Archie Bray Foundation. In 1960 he invited the Shaner family to come for a visit to see the Bray, renew old acquaintances, and make some new ones. Two years later Shaner returned to the Bray, this time as a visiting artist, working alongside Ferguson. The lure of the wide open beauty of the West and the freer working environment at the Bray caused Shaner to reconsider his career as a professor. His restlessness at the university coincided with
Ferguson’s desire to move on to different challenges, and Ferguson began talking to Shaner
about replacing him at the Bray. In 1963 Shaner left Illinois to become Assistant Director at the Bray, becoming Resident Director the following year when Ferguson left for the Kansas City Art Institute.
The Bray was still struggling, its efforts to become profitable a challenge and the relative isolation and harsh winters often difficult. David spent countless hours enlisting the help of Montana political officials, community members, and other potters to keep the Foundation afloat. Even after securing financing for the property, there remained the poor condition of the
buildings and the need to expand the focus and reach of the Bray. It was Shaner’s vision that
the Archie Bray would become a national and noted ceramics art facility, a vision sometimes at odds with that of some members of the Foundation board who preferred a more local focus. Shaner persevered, however, and in 1967 succeeded in winning for the Bray the first National Endowment for the Arts grant in the craft field to support a visiting artist program. Over the twoyear grant period the Bray hosted such artists as Val Cushing, Jun Kaneko, and Chuck Hindes, along with others, including Warren MacKenzie and Daniel Rhodes, coming to hold workshops and exhibitions. The Bray had entered a new phase. In 1970, after seven tireless years on behalf of the Bray, Shaner was ready to enter his own new phase, and retired from the position as Resident Director. By now the Shaners had come to love living in Montana and determined to remain. They found 60 acres of land just outside Bigfork, near Glacier National Park, and there they built David’s
studio and a house. They also put in vegetable and flower gardens, harkening back to David’s
childhood when he was responsible for the family garden. Over time the gardens expanded to include specialized collections - a fern garden, day lilies, peonies, even bamboo and a formal rose garden, although the latter proved less successful. He found in the gardening a release,
calling his work there his “spiritual work.” He supported his family, which now included four
children, by selling his pots both locally and nationally. Once the children were all in school, Ann returned to teaching in addition to helping with the pottery as needed.
A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1978 gave David the opportunity to study wood-firing kilns, and he built a Bourry box kiln. The kiln took on a greater role as potters came
from around the area to fire their wares and be involved in the firing of the wood kiln. Shaner’s
work evolved as well, now including hand-built forms along with the production stoneware and
porcelain. The “Kiva” series that he created in the 1980-90’s was perhaps the total marriage of
the technical skills of the potter with the spiritual depths of the man. The wood kiln was destroyed in a fire in 1991, and rather than rebuild, Shaner turned his attention to hand building and gas reduction firing.
Shaner found inspiration for his work in many places, from hiking in the wilderness areas that surrounded him to his travels in the Southwest where he came to know the work of Native American potters Nampeyo and Maria Martinez. He also appreciated photography, particularly the work of Ansel Adams, Andreas Feininger, and Edward Weston, and took numerous photographs of his own, intrigued by the intricate details of nature and the play of forms and colors. Living in the West, he was particularly conscious of the fragility of the natural world and
the need to preserve it from man’s destructive ways. Throughout his later work, such as the “Chimney” series and more particularly the “Cirques” his love of the natural world and his affinity
for it are evident.
David Shaner’s life was cut short much too young. A generalized weakening which he noticed in 1995 was ultimately diagnosed as ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Over the next seven years he continued to work as he could, making “Shields,” large platters formed by placing rope between
two layers of clay and lightly pounding the top surface. He died at home in 2002. Over the course of his lifetime, David Shaner had a profound influence on American ceramic arts. He received many awards, among them three National endowment for the Arts Visual
Artist Fellowship grants, the Montana Governor’s Award for the Arts, induction into the College
of Fellows of the American Craft Council, and honorary membership in the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. He was instrumental in the development of the Archie Bray Foundation, continuing to support it and serve as a board member from 1970-1989. His legacy includes both his students and those artists who worked with him at the Bray, as well as the perhaps lesser known but equally important giving of himself to his community, the art world, and environmental causes. His legacy will continue in the Archie Bray Foundation’s David and Ann Shaner Resident Studio Complex, built in 2005 and named in honor of David and Ann Shaner.
As much as his art, it is the man himself that his colleagues honor. “David Shaner as a person
stands out among American craftsmen for the high sense of integrity that his work and life represent. He never deviated in purpose, nor compromised for expediency, in a life long
devoted to making pots.”1 1. Gerry Williams. “Introduction.” David Shaner Induction, College of Fellows, American Craft
Council, 1992. Shaner Family Archives. Quoted in Following the Rhythms of Life: The Ceramic Art of David Shaner, ed. By Peter Held. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University Art Museum, 2007.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY – DAVID SHANER
Books and Catalogs
Adamson, Glenn and Davira S. Taragin. Tea, Anyone? The Donna Moog Teapot Collection.
Racine, Wisconsin: Racine Art Museum, 2003, p. 76.
Bernstein, Melvin H. Art and Design at Alfred, A Chronicle of a Ceramics College. Philadelphia,
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Clark, Garth. A Century of Ceramics in the United States, 1878 – 1978: A Study of its
Development. New York, New York: E.P. Dutton and Everson Museum of Art, 1979, pp. 190, 251, 266, 326 – 327.
Conrad, John W. Contemporary Ceramic Techniques. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1979, p. 158.
Donhauser, Paul S. History of American Ceramics, The Studio Potter. Dubuque, Iowa:
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Hardin, Jennifer and Peter Held. Connoisseurs of Clay; Collecting Contemporary Ceramics. St.
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Harrington, La Mar. Ceramics in the Pacific Northwest: A History. Seattle, Washington:
University of Washington Press, 1978, pp. 1, 29, 41, 55.
Held, Peter et al. A Ceramic Continuum: Fifty Years of the Archie Bray Influence,
Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press and Helena, Montana: Holter Museum of Art, 2001, pp. 41-62, 63-76, 96, 104.
Held, Peter et al. David Shaner, A Potter ’ s Work: 1963-1993. Salem, Oregon: Salem Art
Association, 1993.
_______. Following the Rhythms of Life. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, 2007. Herbert, Linda M. Fiction, Function, Figuration The 29th Ceramic National. Syracuse, New York:
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Herman, Lloyd. The Collectors Eye: American and British Ceramics from the Collection of Aaron
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Hopper, Robin. The Ceramic Spectrum: A Simplified Approach to Glaze and Color
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Hyde, Lewis. The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. New York, New York: Vintage
Books, 1983, p. 56. Lackey, Louana A. Rudy Autio. Westerville, Ohio: The American Ceramic Society, 2002, p. 144. Lebow, Edward. Ken Ferguson. Kansas City, Missouri: Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, 1995, pp. 14, 17 – 18.
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Senska, Frances and Diane Douglas. The Legacy of the Archie Bray Foundation: Four Decades of Tradition and Innovation in American Ceramic Art. Bellevue, Washington:
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