William Hunter was born in 1947 in Long Beach, California. He received his AA in Fire Science from Santa Monica City College in 1968. Instead of building a career as a firefighter, Hunter decided to continue with more schooling and received his BA in Sociology and 20th Century Thought from California State University. There, Hunter met Oscar Hindshaw and Harvey Holland, who introduced Hunter to wood crafting. Other than a basic introduction to woodturning by Hindshaw, Hunter is a completely self-taught woodworker. His early work was influenced by the back-to-the-land movement and philosophies of self-reliance and reinvention. Over time, his vessels became abstract without specific reference to function. Hunter eventually saw his vessels as a metaphoric studies of containment. He took the utilitarian foundation of woodworking and expanded its dimensions into unique sculptural exploration. This new direction in contemporary wood art assisted in its emergence as a legitimate and highly regarded form of artistic expression. Throughout his career, he has been in various exhibitions and museum collections throughout the US. William Hunter currently lives in Palos Verdes, California, and continues to play a major role in the field of contemporary craft and wood art.