About

Whistle Post Pottery is based in Olalla, Oregon about 20 minutes outside Winston in the Coastal Mountain foothills of Douglas County. After nine years of semi-urban living in 2018 we decided to go rural and found a spot decidedly different from the the River Road neighborhood of Eugene, Oregon where Whistle Post Pottery was founded.

A whistle post is a sign marking the spot where a locomotive engineer has to sound the train's horn or whistle. Our former home and studio was within earshot of the Union Pacific mainline and the refrain of the passing trains was the soundtrack to much of our waking and sleeping lives. It seemed fitting to salute it with our name. Although we aren’t living near a train yard any longer and pottery is getting made with a view of our ever-increasing herd of goats and forested mountains the name has stuck.

Whistle Post Pottery was created in 2009 after we moved from England to Eugene in search of more space and adventure. Originally from Stoke-on-Trent, England, an area known as 'The Potteries' due to spawning Royal Doulton, Wedgewood and many others, David moved to Bristol to attend the University of the West of England. After graduating in 1997 with a BA in Ceramics he established his own studio and sold his work in markets and galleries across the southwest of England.

In 2000 David met his wife, Melissa and joined forces, establishing a home together in Bristol and adopting far too many dogs. Feeling curious about the world outside his studio David retrained as an Arborist in 2004 and wound down his pottery. Needing even more excitement than swinging in trees with a chainsaw we moved to America and settled in Oregon, where Melissa had grown up. More circumstance than design we ended up in Eugene and found ourselves in a region where trees and pottery were plentiful. The abundance of natural inspiration and creative outlets rekindled the urge to work with clay and Whistle Post Pottery was born.