KC ORIGINALS by PATRICIA O'DELL | photos by ANNA PETROW
CONVIVIAL PRODUCTIONS
Bringing Dust to Life.
Chentell Shannon is creating a company and a culture that celebrates community It’s possible that Chentell Shannon shouts, but it’s difficult to believe that she would. She’s built Convivial Productions – a company that creates collections of handmade wares for the home, table, and garden – over the last five years with a quiet, steady hand. While she does not pretend to know all the answers of what happens next, she is conscious and careful with her life and her company as she considers what is best using her own definition of success. While Shannon is passionate about what she does and how she does it, she was not envisioning her future as she made clay pots in kindergarten. Her interest in pottery came much later. “My older sister is two years ahead of me,” Shannon says. “I was the quintessential younger sister. I thought she was so cool. I wanted to be just like her.” Shannon’s sister had enrolled in a ceramics class in high school, so she enrolled in a ceramic class in high school. “Then, independently, I really started loving it. I took ceramics classes every semester that I could. Then I started doing independent study with my professor and learned wheel throwing and hand building.” She discovered she has a visceral experience working with her hands.
14 | TODAY KANSAS CITY | Winter 2019
