ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 8, 1996 TAG: 9609090006
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-18 CURRENT EDITION: NEW RIVER
DATELINE: FLOYD
SOURCE: JUDY SCHWAB SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
Remember in the '60s and '70s when people decided they would learn to throw pots, buy land way back in the country, build a house themselves and eat vegetables from their gardens? Ever wondered what happened to them?
At least two of them pulled it off. Well, the garden may have succumbed to weeds, but Ellen Shankin and her husband Brad Warstler have built the house. And Shankin throws the pots.
The couple found Floyd County in 1977. They came to visit someone in the spring and "it was like Camelot," according to Shankin, "perfect weather, it had a food co-op, people were friendly." When she went back to school in New York she found out her teacher had two students living in Floyd.
Shankin had discovered pottery as a student when she attended a two-month workshop in the famous artist colony in Penland, N.C. She also discovered there the man she would later marry. At 18 she decided to be a potter and changed colleges to pursue her career. She ended up studying at the Rhode Island School of Design and the New York State School of Ceramics in Alfred, N.Y.
Nineteen years later, Shankin is winning recognitions such as an Eagle Design Award at the Smithsonian Craft Show.
More than 16,000 attended the show in April in Washington, D.C., and Shankin sold almost all of the work she took there. It was the second time she had made it into the show, out of three tries. Few artists are selected for the show because of the thousands of studio craft artists in the country. "You could be best-in-show one year and not get in the next," Shankin said.
Shankin is a studio potter and relies on the bulk of her sales through galleries. Every February she takes her work to the American Craft Council show in Baltimore. The top craftsmen in the country show their work at this event. There are a thousand booths at the event compared with 125 or so at the Smithsonian. Most sales are made during the first few days, which are open only to retailers. Shankin has made deals with galleries all over the country.
Retailers say, "Your work is great. We want a lot of it. And send it when you're ready," she said, ticking off the statements she most wants to hear from clients.
Studio potters differ from production potters in subtle ways. Shankin makes everything herself. The only help she gets is in packing the work for shipment. "I'm way too inefficient to be a production potter," Shankin laughed, standing in her studio in front of a brick kiln that seemed to be as big as a pickup truck. "I couldn't imagine anyone else messing with the clay."
Although a studio potter needs to base some decisions on business and kiln space, none of those business matters influence what Shankin decides to make.
For instance, although her work may have angular paddled surfaces, everything starts out round. She throws every piece and then spends a lot of time on surface treatment. A production potter might worry about the drop in hourly rate such time would cost, but she doesn't. With her string of galleries she can make designs and her customers can choose from among them. In this way she avoids the dreaded "But, can I have it in blue?" customer whims.
Shankin also teaches about four workshops a year throughout the country. There are two varieties of workshop. One is professional and pays little. "It can be a hardship," she said about the small pay and time it takes from her work. But the trade-off is often a wonderful experience in a beautiful place. Shankin just returned from Hay Stacks, a crafts school with an excellent reputation on an island off the coast of Maine where she enjoyed wonderful surroundings, stimulating students and colleagues, and got to try glass blowing.
The other type of workshop lasts only a weekend and is attended by amateurs with an abiding love for pottery. She spends the time working while they watch. These workshops pay better and she can sell her work at them.
Shankin began teaching in 1991 when she received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She says the grant was an honor that obliges her to help others interested in ceramics. "If that woman hadn't worked for peanuts for two months at Penland, I wouldn't have gone to art school," she said of the experience that first inspired her years ago.
As for their house and Floyd lifestyle Shankin says, "Our naivete caused us to have everything." While other people advised the couple of the pitfalls of building their own house, they shrugged off the advice and forged ahead. The result is a lovely place that may always be a work in progress.
When the couple began the house they innocently thought they could live in a 25-by-25-foot room with a bedroom above. On either side of this passive solar construction were their two studios - Warstler is a woodworker.
Five years later with two kids, they were going crazy and decided to rethink the design. Now the woodworking studio is in a separate building, bedrooms and a living room have been added and the main living area is the kitchen, and the spacious heart of the home.
The living room contains a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace the couple built from rocks the farmers had been piling beside the fields. Their children, 11-year-old Jacob and 13-year-old Clayton, enjoy all the comforts of a more urban setting with television, videos and all the other usual entertainment sources. The boys were raised knowing the rules of at-home studio work - absolutely no shenanigans in the work place.
So how do two craft artists make a living at the end of a road so far into the country the mail carrier barely finds it? Partly through discipline and also by making choices.
Shankin chooses to work in her studio daily and about three evenings a week as well. Asked about finding the discipline to go off and work by herself day after day, Shankin said, "Life is much more complicated than pottery - you can spend a lot of time in there," she said, nodding toward the studio end of the house.
Although Ellen Shankin and Brad Warstler sell their work in galleries across the country, they are not represented locally. They have a yearly open house at which they sell their work on Thanksgiving weekend. To be placed on the mailing list for an announcement, call 745-3595.
Floyd County
Camelot
Artists find their lifestyle an ever-changing
work in progress / Page 18
Ellen Shankin throws every piece and then spends a lot of time on surface treatment.
Life is more complicated than pottery ... Ellen Shankin
LENGTH: Long : 121 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Floyd County potter Ellen Shankin at work in herby CNBFloyd County studio (ran on NRV-1). 2. Ellen Shankin throws every
pience and then spends a lot of time on surface treatment. 3.
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