MAKERS | THE AMERICAS | USA | POTTERY

William Reardon | Potter

Born and raised in New York City, William Reardon, founder of New York Stoneware, grew up determined to establish a craft-based career. Now living and working as a full-time potter, craftsmanship for William is a process of accumulation: ideas, images, techniques and influences gathered over a lifetime and transformed at the wheel. From art school in Chicago to his Brooklyn studio, he reflects on the mentors, rituals and restless curiosity that shape his classic everyday stoneware.

How did you begin?

I was fortunate to be born and raised in New York by a mother with a keen eye and a father who, raised in Queens, came to the city obsessed with his medical practice and the diverse range of art that only New York can hold.

The two of them helped to expose me to everything the city had to offer and I was perhaps born with a proclivity to value and retrain much of it and compelled to participate in this world of art and design, and ultimately determined to create a craft-based career.

After studying ceramics at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago I found myself working in the music world in my mid 20s. When my girlfriend, now wife, encouraged me to rent a small space in a shared Brooklyn ceramics studio I began throwing again on weekends. I haven't stopped since and formally started New York Stoneware in 2013.

How did you learn?

I had several key mentors from an early age in grade-school through college in several different mediums including music, music performance and ceramics. While I had always been enchanted with pottery making on the wheel, it wasn’t until art school in Chicago that I both developed the critical ability to articulate ideas through art-making and also where I stumbled into the ceramics department.

From there I “caught the bug”, as I like to say, and with the encouragement of my professors and the extracurricular opportunities and jobs they gave me throughout my college years, I developed the practical material knowledge and techniques that would be required to build a career in ceramics. 

All of my mentors also demonstrated the type of lifestyle that an artist could have and encouraged my aspirations to turn art into my life and life’s work.

Who or what most influences your work?

I’m inspired by a combination of the spontaneous joy that comes out of the process of creating something, the impulse to improve my technique and knowledge as a craftsperson and the desire to create designs and products that will stand the test of time, and are a reflection of their times.

My biggest influence are craftspeople who work hard enough on their craft that they eventually become a part of the tradition and collective wisdom and knowledge that originally drew them toward it.

How do you plan, prepare, and create your works?

My process is very intuitive but also a well researched one – not necessarily for a specific project though. Throughout my life I’ve been “collecting” let’s say, ideas, images, techniques, knowledge, connections and emotions and I feel like I am able to sort of metabolize them instead of simply remembering them.

When it comes time for a specific project I look at the basic requirements and try to let these metabolized ideas and formal visual elements lead the way and I start refining until I resolve the design requirements. If I need to seek additional references for specific questions, I will do so. It’s an intuitive process with lots of outside help. The next step is then developing a system and processes to put the project into efficient production.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I like to start my day with some “productive procrastination” and that helps get me into my work rhythm. It might be a jig of some sort to help shape a handle or to guide a tool as part of a trimming process or it might just be making a slight improvement to my workshop, which could be adding a hinged leaf to my workbench for wareboards so I can flip it down when not in use, or finishing up another work table with a perfectly flat reference surface to check flatness tolerances on larger forms.

After this point it’s onto getting set up for the major task of the day which may be throwing, trimming or glazing. I’ll spend the rest of the day doing one of those activities. If I’m throwing I like to use a little bit of leftover clay or even just wet scraps to make a small one-off “sketch” just for fun and sometimes these can be an inspiration in and of themselves.

A place or space that most inspires you?

Nature and the natural world including its animals and humans have always been my biggest inspiration. My favorite place to perch is outside my studio on a bench in the shade carving utensils out of foraged wood and watching whomever walks, crawls or flies by – that and modernist architecture!

What music do you listen to while you work?

I listen to podcasts like THE TRUTH ABOUT VINTAGE AMPS, WTF with Mark Maron, THE POTTER’S CAST or audiobooks are also great in the studio during production. And a pretty eclectic range of music, including my kids’ favorite music.

Interview by Lucrezia Lucas

Images from Kate S. Jordan and © New York Stoneware