In an age when consumers expect products to be churned out and delivered pronto, David Norton’s work as a potter stands out for its rustic charm and artistic integrity.
The owner of Potterosa in Round Hill taught himself the art of meticulously creating functional stoneware pottery and ceramic sculpture. He has done so for more than 40 years, and now has started to wind down a career that’s drawn worldwide attention.
Norton has never made one pot at a time, but laboriously produced two dozen bowls, pots, canisters, plates, or cups at one sitting in about four or five hours at the wheel. On busy weeks, the artist spent about 20 hours creating at the wheel; then glazing the pots took another two to three weeks. The projects consumed 10 to 12 hours daily. He says there is always something to do in a pottery shop — something to uncover, something to flip over, something to load or unload.
“I love to see things getting accomplished,” Norton says from his unpretentious studio, which overlooks an idyllic pond and plenty of wildlife. “At the end of the day, before I leave, I always look back and see a couple boards of pots that weren’t there in the morning, and I’m satisfied. Seeing something go from mud to beautiful artwork is very satisfying for me.”
Norton creates stoneware that customers seek out for its balance of beauty and practicality. His eclectic collection includes mugs, cups, casserole dishes, vases, plates, bowls, and more. Norton has a picturesque home, studio, and gallery located atop a scenic hill.
“It’s an amazing space that he’s created for himself over 40 years,” says friend and customer Tim Farmer, who lives nearby. “Sometimes I’ll go over and keep him company while he’s babysitting his kiln, which sounds like a space shuttle when it’s taking off. It’s loud — it’s like a fire-breathing dragon, this kiln that he built brick by brick himself.”
The massive kiln — about as big as a powder room — holds as many as 500 pots at one time. Norton custom-designed it with sliders, to more easily open and close the heavy brick-adorned doors. The kiln resembles a miniature railroad car, and Norton strenuously pulls it open to reveal well-worn shelves that house his crafts. A propane tank built into the hillside fires the kiln up to 2,300 degrees. It takes about 12 hours to get to temperature and three days to cool down. Norton says he’s helped other potters create kilns, based on his Goliath of a specimen.
He has lived with his wife, Brenda, since 1986 in a circa-1870 log cabin just up the hill from his ceramics studio and surrounded by lush trees.
“I’m a pioneer,” he says. “I squeeze mud for a living. I heat my house with wood. Who does that?”
Similarities between Norton, his home, and his stoneware abound: Each piece he creates is a genuine reflection of his beloved craft, distinct and bucolic in its natural simplicity.
“There’s an organic quality about them,” customer and friend Janice Clark says of Norton’s stoneware. “They just are very natural-looking, kind of like David is — sort of sturdy and authentic. And, yeah, they’re also refined. I mean, there’s a definite beauty to them.”
Worldwide Attention
Norton’s usable art has been highly celebrated over his four decades in business. From 1978 up until the pandemic in 2020, the crafter maintained a pottery gallery in the Torpedo Factory Arts Center in Old Town Alexandria. There, Norton says he sold the bulk of his functional pots and artistic vessels to customers from more than 85 countries. With hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, he found his receptive audience.
“The fact that my work is all over the world is just a function of the fact that I was in the Torpedo Factory with people from all over the world coming through there,” Norton says. “I kept track of all the places that my pots went to, and after 85, I just lost count.”
Norton also says that his stoneware is used on all seven continents, even Antarctica. When a longtime friend and customer took a work trip to the continent, he asked her to take one of his pieces with her.
“I took one of his mugs along,” says Nancy Farmer, a videographer from Round Hill. “I got to know some of the researchers in a camp that counted penguins, and they said, ‘Sure, we’ll take the mug with us.’ And so, because I would be making a video of the trip, I made sure that the mug showed up in the video, and I sent it to David. He saw it and was so proud.”
Norton has also exhibited and taught at the prestigious Smithsonian American Art Museum’s
Renwick Gallery and presented workshops in Venezuela, Poland, and in the Washington, DC, area.
Originally from Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania, Norton says his love of ceramics began while he studied journalism at Ohio University. His girlfriend at the time majored in art, so Norton took a ceramics class with her, never expecting to turn it into a profession. After graduation, he worked in Pittsburgh as a copywriter for The Joseph Horne Company department store. But Norton kept thinking about pottery, and would visit Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Arts Festival in search of potters who had successful careers and could pay the bills.
“I talked to some working potters there and just went ‘cool,’” Norton says. “If you’re a potter, it looks like magic, what you’re doing, and it kind of is.”
He took another class but ended up teaching himself the finer points of pottery. “It’s not rocket science,” he says. “I didn’t want to work in an office the rest of my life, so it seemed like a cool thing to do.”
A Labor of Love
Creating this successful formula on a large, profit-making scale for more than four decades turned into a labor of love for the craftsman.
“I would fill my gallery full of plates and functional vessels of all colors and sizes,” Norton says. “I set myself goals every week; I tried to make $3,000 worth of pots every single week — it wasn’t just some little hobby I had.”
The artisan says throughout his career, he has made his own clay, an annual, painstaking process of mixing 3 tons of shapable compound. His motivation? Buying clay was more than seven times more costly. He says he has strived to make well-balanced, well-designed, and well-used products, with the intent that they would be used every day.
“There’s a ton of people out there that drink their coffee out of one of my mugs every morning,” he says. “It makes me feel good that people love what I do so much that it’s a part of their daily lives.”
“I think there’s an authenticity — his work is not frivolous. It’s not frumpy, it’s not ostentatious,” says Lovettsville customer Barbara Tobler. “It’s solid, it’s basic, it’s beautiful, and there’s this connection to the Earth. It’s reformed through David’s skill and creativity.”
And there’s something to be said for a locally made, handcrafted piece that stands the test of time. “There’s a million places to make a mistake, but when they come out perfect, then it’s all worthwhile,”
Norton says. And with four decades of experience on his pottery wheel, he’s built a solid fan base.
“Depending on who’s coming over for dinner, if we’re having guests, we’ll often pull [Norton’s plates] out — they’re kind of special dishes,” says Clark. “They’re definitely unique; they’re handmade, so there’s always a little something different about them. Maybe that’s not for everybody, but I think it’s kind of cool.”
Collect While You Can
Over the years, Norton’s work has received acclaim from The New York Times and The Washington Post, and he’s been voted the best local artist by readers of the Loudoun Times-Mirror. Now semi-retired from his craft, he prefers to play pickleball with friends and spend time with his grown daughter and grandchildren, who live in Australia.
“I’m really at the tail end of my career,” says the 74-year-old. “Making pottery is a physical job; it’s hard. I made my own clay. I made my own base. I made my own glazes. Now I’m really slowing down on my operation.”
The good news for customers is that his Round Hill gallery still offers plenty of handcrafted items from his collection, including his popular vegetable steamer, which retails for around $125. Norton’s other dishwasher-safe, microwave-safe items include plates, mugs, cups, canisters, vases, and bowls.
“We have a complete set of dishes, plates, salad plates, and bowls,” says Tim Farmer. “I can’t even tell you how many mugs we have, and you know, my coffee just doesn’t taste right unless I have it out of my Norton mug in the morning.”
Feature image of David Norton by Emily Campos
This story originally ran in our January Issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
