Bill POULSON

Born: 1941, Oakland, California
Medium: fine wood furniture making and stained glass

Bill lived in Oakland until his family moved to Castro Valley in 1946. He graduated from Castro Valley high school in 1958 and attended college for two years in Oregon, Pacific University, Forest Grove, and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California.

He left college in 1962 and traveled in Europe for over a year where he was exposed to some of the worlds greatest artists and that inspired him to follow his passion as an artist/craftsman.

He was drafted into the army in 1965 and served two years at Ft. Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska.

He was discharged in 1967; returned to Castro Valley and started work on a 1935 Trimaran sailboat with his friend. He was working full time as a journeyman carpenter during the two years it took them to build the boat. They finished the boat in January, 1969, and in July of that year sailed the boat from San Francisco to Maui, Hawaii.

He worked in Hawaii as a carpenter for three years and then returned to California where he worked in a cabinet shop from 1974 to 1978 in Sutter Creek. He then returned to Hawaii to start his stained glass business in Paia, Maui, Hawaii. In 1986 Bill returned to California to start the Four Seasons of Yosemite in Stained Glass project in his studio/gallery in Arnold, California. That dramatic series of folding screens is now housed in the library of the University of California Modesto campus.He is now creating Asian influenced entry cabinets and tables and continuing to work with stained glass commissions.

Bill met his wife, Bobbette, in 2001 and together they work on glass commissions. Although he does not have any formal art training, Bill always enjoyed drawing since he was very young. His development in glass art comes from hands-on experience. Bill POulsons's art work is inspired by the beauty of nature in all of its forms.