Potting On The Road | WIlliam Duvall

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WIlliam Duvall | Episode 641

William Duvall is a potter originally from the east coast. William moved to Seattle after college and turned his basement into a studio. Then William started bringing his work on the road!

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When you are making do you have a set pot that you would make every time or would it be random whatever you felt like at the moment?

There was a couple of times where I kind of felt inspired by the landscapes around me.Like in Utah with the cliffs and canyons and everything like that and some of the mountains in Colorado. And in Yellowstone, Old Faithful exploding like that, so I tried to make the vase express the same sort of thing. But a lot of it was just kind of throwing a cylinder and then seeing where I took it. I can remake a pot, it was really about just kind of gaining ideas. I get in these creative ruts here in my house. That was where a lot of this trim was coming from too. This was for fun and inspiration. That’s why I was answering the those questions, Why are you crushing the pot? Why are you breaking it? And I was like, It’s for fun and inspiration. I’m purely doing it for that right now. Maybe on my next trip I will save some of my pots and do something like that but right now it’s about seeing what I can do.

When you were planning this road trip did you actually map it out or did you just say, I’m heading south right now?

It was very on a whim. I had planned this trip…well I obviously had this idea of taking my wheel. I didn’t know where I was going to go. I was like, I am just going to go on an adventure. I told my cousin, who I live with, I am just going to go on an adventure. And he said, Okay, see you when I see you. I took three pairs of shirts and three pairs of shorts and a couple of sweatpants and got on the road for what I thought was going to be a long weekend. My friend said, If I were you I wouldn’t be back on Sunday, I would just keep it going. And I thought, Oh, maybe you’re right. As I was thinking about it I thought, I could go down to San Francisco. And my brother is down in LA so I could go visit him. And then it just kind of went on from there. Then my friend from Denver said, Come see me! I guess I just kept on wanting to go and kept on getting pressured to keep going. I didn’t have any date to be back so I might as well keep it going.

Did you have a favorite conversation you had with one of the people that would stop and look at your work?

Yes, I do. I wanted to say it was the guy in the Tetons, he was telling me about his whole trip in his van across the country and everything like that. And he was selling his pots out of his van. That was really awesome, but I met these people at the end of my trip. It was a grandfather and his grandson who were kind of on a road trip like me. They didn’t really have a plan or anything like that. They drove past me seeing me throw pots and made a u-turn and came around and they guy pulled up and said, Hey I saw you were making pots. Can I show my grandson? And I was like, Yeah, for sure. And they had a dog too and so our dogs got out of the car. Usually my dog stays in but there was enough room where they could have fun in the back and we just talked for awhile. And I really got to just show the kid what I was doing and show his grandfather what I was doing and show him how much fun I was having and everything like that. He was the best.

I know this trip was for fun and inspiration for you, but were you surprised that it was inspirational to others?

Yeah, for sure. I mean with amount of people who have caught on to it now has definitely been inspirational. I have been waking up every day with these likes and I have never really experienced all this attention before. Or for my pottery so it’s been pretty cool and eye opening. And it really has been a point for me to keep it going to see that people have been inspired. It really has been cool to see other potters tagging potters in my stuff. My stuffs legit now, I guess.

I know you have another trip planned. Do you see yourself just stopping randomly again?

Yeah. I think I will have more kind of a set schedule of when I want to be…I am going to North Carolina for those who are listening, which is obviously on the other side of the country. There are many ways to get there, so right now I am just trying to figure out which way I want to go. When I came across the country out to Seattle I took the northern route. Which was amazing and beautiful. So I was thinking about taking the southern route, but then it’s super hot. So I am just up in the air right now.

After this trip, which was your favorite place to be?

I knew you were going to say this. It was that spot in Northern California. That was my favorite spot to be. Actually. I might redo that and say, Lake Tahoe was pretty incredible. There were no tourists there which was really nice. But the locals were very surprised with m work. They were like, See something new every time in Tahoe. And I was like, Yeah, I guess so. Because I am sure you haven’t seen this before. Yeah, just the water and just the hikes and everything that is Tahoe obviously is just incredible, so that was my favorite spot and my dog’s favorite spot.