Bill Potts

Bill Potts has worked with scrap lumber, paints, and materials that he picked up along the way. He neglects nothing that can become part of his broad vision. His works include astonishingly varied themes of the extinct and contemporary world: dinosaurs, animals, airplanes, classic cars, historic figures, and ethnic folk heroes. Executed as single pieces or as part of a tableau, his prolific work of the past decade has been discovered by critics and important collectors of folk art.

Bill Potts at his studio.

Bill Potts currently lives and works in Denver, Colorado and has achieved much critical acclaim during his artistic career.

In one newspaper article written by Steven Rosen of the Denver Post, Potts was named the “highlight of the show;” the show was an exhibit of Colorado Folk Art and Artists at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities. Rosen wrote: “Bill Potts, a local carver who uses wood scraps to make wry and touching tributes to contemporary black culture. Unlike so many other creators of folk arts and crafts, he doesn’t pretend the electronic age has bypassed him. A black man, Potts keenly carves tributes to those African Americans who have become part of our cultural heritage thanks to the media. While his Michael Jordan doesn’t look exactly like Jordan, it is so full of vibrancy, a sense of action and artistic goodwill that I find it preferable to any poster-size photograph.”