Michael Kline makes utilitarian ceramics with botanical-themed painted and stamped surfaces. For most of his career, Kline has worked with wood-fired salt-glazed stoneware, usually with organic patterns painted on a thick white slip surface, glass runs, and an alkaline ash glaze. As a resident at Penland, he began making large pots inspired by the traditional stoneware of Catawba Valley and Seagrove, North Carolina. He also briefly experimented with translucent porcelain, which allowed the floral patterns to become a raised, topographical feature. He also visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art and was struck by 15th century examples of the Korean sanggam technique. Since then, he has focused on applying this technique to his own work, creating floral stamps and inlaying the impressions with white slip on a dark stoneware base, and firing in a gas kiln. This body of work currently makes up a third of his output. Kline’s work is consistently identifiable in its delicate pattern systems contrasted with robust forms and slightly coarse materials.
Kline began working with clay in college, and while he initially pursued a civil engineering degree, he graduated with a BFA in Ceramics in 1986. He taught at the Westside YMCA in New York, before attending a Michael Simon Workshop at Penland School of Crafts in 1989. Following the workshop, he became a full time studio potter, sharing a workspace with Mark Shapiro and Sam Taylor in Western Massachusetts. Afterwards, he came back to Penland as a Resident Artist. Following his residency, he set up a studio in nearby Bakersville, where he continues to work today. He has taught numerous workshops across the country, and was a presenter at the Utilitarian Clay Conference at Arrowmont School of Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.