Today, from a 36-acre wooded property in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, the Watsons oversee an enterprise shaped by craftsmanship, historical imagination and a conviction that handmade work still matters in a mass-produced age. Their business, Potomac Leather Company, was founded in 1983 and began as a custom leather workshop, eventually taking on commissions for clients like President Ronald Reagan, basketball legend Magic Johnson, a crown prince of Saudi Arabia and music legend Eric Clapton.
Over time, the business evolved beyond custom leatherwork into original collections, jewelry and historically accurate clothing and accessories.
That evolution led, in the mid-1990s, to another venture: Wolfstone Kilt Company, devoted to historically grounded Irish, Scottish and Scandinavian clothing from the early medieval period through the 19th century.
For Virginia, this work is about more than costume. As she put it in her award-winning Meet a Scientologist episode, modern life can feel saturated with a “phony kind of plastic culture.” One way to counter that, she explains, is to help people rediscover where they came from and “who their ancestors really were.” In that view, apparel can become more than fabric or fashion—it can become a way of restoring memory, identity and pride.
After difficult early years shaped by the drug culture of the 1970s, the Watsons each left drugs behind when they found Scientology, and began building not only a business but a shared philosophy. Bill trained in saddle making while Virginia studied bootmaking under renowned Utah craftsman Randy Merrell. And together, they transformed practical skill into artistry and artistry into a way of life.
In conversation, the Watsons are candid, funny and occasionally corrective with one another. What emerges is the portrait of a couple who have spent a lifetime making things that last—and in the process, making each other stronger too.
Looking back, what were the earliest signs that you were drawn not just to art but to making tangible things with your hands?
Bill: When I was young, I would work with my dad in his workshop. He loved to make stuff out of wood, so that was when I first started learning to make things by hand. I wasn’t allowed to have a knife when I was young, but as soon as I could, we would carve things together.
Bill, you’ve described loving the smell and texture of leather from an early age. What was it about the material that captured you so deeply—and when did you first realize it might become your life’s work?
Bill: When I came to the end of high school, my brothers and sisters had all gone to university and I just didn’t feel cut out for it. My mom, in her infinite wisdom, said to me that I didn’t have to go to university but that I had to do something. So she goes, “You know, you’ve been doing this leatherwork, so why don’t you do something that would contribute to or expand on that?” She helped me get into a school to learn how to make saddles for riding horses. I realized that I could make a living at this and I worked in a number of different saddle shops once I got out of school. I found many opportunities and started designing things on my own from that point.
Many couples discover after marriage whether they can work together. At what point did you realize that your marriage and your professional partnership could actually strengthen one another?
Bill: I’m laughing because we’ve gotten much better at working together. We both have such strong opinions about different ways of doing stuff that sometimes it would get a little heated. But I think over the past five years or so…
Virginia: Longer!
Bill: Longer? Yeah, 10 years, maybe. We’ve become much more about give-and-take in designing together. It’s actually quite a pleasant process. We’ll work on colors or we’ll work on design—different aspects of an art piece.
After all these years, how do you think your relationship has evolved, and what role has Scientology played in that growth?
Bill: We’ve both continued to study and receive spiritual counseling throughout these years. We have grown spiritually, both independently and also together, as we learn to communicate better.
Virginia: We believe, in Scientology, that a relationship like ours is one that is constantly created. So you don’t just get married and go, “Well, now I’m married.” You get married and then you have to work at the marriage. So that’s helped. Also, we have defined functions at home. There are certain things that I do, including running a household, and certain areas that are Bill’s responsibility. We split up the jobs and that has made it very easy to get along.
What are both of you currently working on?
Virginia: Well, right now I’m cutting out a fairy that I designed to appliqué onto a leather skirt. It’s a showpiece.
Bill: I have a line of jewelry that I do and there’s a message that goes with each piece, aligning with the idea that we are all spiritual beings.
Besides the artistic aspects of your business, what else do you do professionally?
Virginia: I do a lot of administrative stuff, like paperwork. And then I have another career that I try to do at the same time—I write murder mysteries, which are kind of my passion. I’ve written two and am on my third. I’ve also had some poetry published.
Bill: I’m just gonna add in there that I’ve edited her books. I know them inside out. A big part of her writing is to bring to life the spiritual abilities of a person.
Virginia: I believe that most people in the US—in the Western world—don’t realize that they are spiritual beings. I think it’s very important for people to know that’s who they are, and that’s the underlying message of my books.
You’ve both spoken about modern culture feeling disposable or synthetic. What do you think people are hungry for when they come to you looking for something handmade, historical and lasting?
Bill: A lot of what you see in shopping malls and what you can buy online are mass-produced items that don’t really have any soul to them. They’re useful in day-to-day life, but they don’t have any connectivity to a person making something, which I think is very important. Each artist or each craftsperson who makes something puts a little bit of themselves—their energy—into the piece. So we try to keep that tradition alive.
Virginia, you have said that reconnecting people with their ancestors and cultural roots can help them appreciate who they are and who they could become. What have you seen in your customers that convinces you this is true?
Virginia: While selling tartans, I would quite often see that people didn’t know which Scottish clan they were associated with. So I had this book and I could look up a customer’s name in it and say, “Oh, you’re with clan MacBean or MacIntyre”—whoever they were connected to.
Bill: And they were quite happy to know where their ancestral lines came from. And so, often when you put somebody in a piece like that, not only are they impressed by the materials we choose and the quality we put into the garment, but also how they feel in it. And Virginia has a story about that.
Virginia: Bill’s talking about this one lady I dressed in an outfit from about 1750. It takes quite a while to get these clothes on, and as we were almost done, the woman started crying. And I said, “Oh, don’t you like it?” And she said, “No—I think I’ve been in these kinds of clothes before.” She felt that, for the first time ever, she had seen a memory from a past life, because the clothes felt so natural to her. When you dress people in historically accurate clothing, most of them don’t react like that, but I have seen it a few times.
Your work supports a wider network of artisans, tailors, blacksmiths and other makers. Why has it been important for you to build a community of craftsmanship rather than simply grow yourselves as entrepreneurs?
Bill: We’re trying to enhance the culture. A lot of people who make things for us have other jobs that aren’t all that satisfying for them. We’re nice to them and help them. Of course, we want to make a living, but the point is not to become wealthy—the point is to make it so that other people can also make stuff. I don’t know if it’s a movement, but it creates a pocket of people who find joy in making things.
Both of you have said that Scientology has been central to your lives since your teens. In which concrete way has Scientology helped you become more certain of who you are?
Virginia: I got into Scientology when I was 18. Before that, I had used pot in the early 70s, and Scientology doesn’t accept illegal drugs. I very much wanted a philosophy, and Scientology fulfilled my need for wanting to know who I am and where I fit into this universe. So Scientology’s been a core part of me.
Bill: A lot of Virginia’s story is parallel to my own. I was also into the drug culture, and drugs make you feel kind of wooden and introverted. When I got into Scientology—again, as Virginia was saying, you can’t take drugs and attend Scientology’s courses and spiritual counseling—I remember my mother telling me very specifically that she credited Scientology with getting me off of drugs and that she was very thankful for that.
How does Scientology continue to shape that next chapter of your lives?
Bill: We’ve both come to a point where we’re actually able to communicate what we want to communicate. I know with Virginia, she wants to write more books and reach more people. And with me, it’s about the spiritual messages that I want to convey in the heritage jewelry and leatherwork that I make.
You started out as a couple with almost nothing—just a card table, faith and a willingness to work. What kept you from giving up?
Virginia: We’ve always had this common idea that if we worked together on something—whatever the goal was—we would get there. And so we did that. We didn’t look at why we couldn’t do something. We only looked at how we could do it. And that made a big difference.
