Kenneth Shores was born in Lebanon, Oregon. He earned his MFA with honors in 1957 from the university of Oregon and later became an artist resident at the Oregon Ceramic Studio from 1957 to 1964. From 1965 to 1968 Ken served as the director of the Contemporary Crafts Gallery (renamed the Museum of Contemporary Craft, the oldest (1909) continuously running craft museum on the west coast which closed amid controversy in 2016). From 1968 to 1995 Ken established and built the art departments new ceramics department at Lewis and Clark College and served as the chairman for the art department for 9 years.

Shores supplemented his education over the course of two summers spent in Northern California, where he studied with Bauhaus potter Marguerite Wildenhain. These workshops influenced him less stylistically than in work ethic and dedication to his craft. Shores takes inspiration from the organic forms of Spanish architect Antonio Gaudí (1852–1926) and pre-Columbian decorative art objects, which he started collecting after graduate school.

Shores’ work is featured in many private and personal collection including the Museum of Contemporary Craft, the Portland Art Museum, the Henry Art Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum, the Johnson Wax Collection, and the Hokkaido Television Broadcasting Co. in Sapporo, Japan.