Michael Kline    

Bakersville, North Carolina

Michael Kline studied painting and printmaking before becoming a potter.   He began in clay with Michael Simon at the Penland School of Crafts.  After teaching in New York, he joined Mark Shapiro at the Stonepool Pottery in Massachusetts.  In 1993 Kline began his own Okra Pottery Studio where he produced a line of distinctive wood fired-salt glazed tableware for which he is well known. His work features linear drawings evoking botanical themes.  In 1998, Kline worked as a Resident Artist at the Penland School where he developed a body of work in translucent porcelain as well as large scale stoneware inspired by the traditional pottery of the Seagrove area of North Carolina .  At the end of his tenure at Penland he designed and built a large wood fired kiln which is fired five times a year.  The kiln is in Bakersville, North Carolina where Kline lives with his wife, a goldsmith, their two daughters and a beagle named Ruby.