Born in Paris, Texas, I spent much of my childhood exploring the vast woods near my home. Growing up in this small, isolated East Texas town and spending long periods of time communing with nature continues to inspire my life and work to this day. Although I began drawing at an early age, I spent much more time playing outside than pursuing art. Once my parents recognized that I had some ability to draw, they then told me stories about my paternal grandmother, who was a schooled and talented artist of her day. Throughout the later years of my childhood, I made art every chance I got, and discovered that a life without art was not a life I wanted to pursue.
In 1968, I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic Design from East Texas State University, and spent 30 years working as a Graphic Designer in Dallas. During this time I continued to paint and make art as a hobby. Gradually, however, I felt the need to make art that was meaningful to me, rather than make commercial art that satisfied the needs of others. In 1995 I went back to school to pursue a Master of Fine Arts at the University of North Texas, earning my MFA in Studio Arts/Drawing and Painting in December of 2000. (It took me five years because a devastating house fire and intense lawsuit intervened.)
My graduate school years were creatively rich and inspiring. I had the good fortune of being taught and mentored by some of the country’s most highly recognized artists: Vernon Fischer, Robert Jessup, Vincent Falsetta, Annette Lawrence, Ed Blackburn, and Richard Allen, who pushed me outside of my comfort zone of safe and predictable art and helped me evolve to a deeper process of making art.
In the years following graduate school I continued to struggle to find a balance between wanting to control the entire process in a predictable way, to letting the process emerge from a place of deep creativity. Predictable art doesn’t keep an artist up at night; letting a process emerge, being present with the uncertainty of not knowing the outcome – that not only keeps me up at night, it removes me from the constraints of clock time. When I’m working on a painting, I find that my attention and focus turn inward until the painting is complete. As a break from this intense creative process, and purely for my own amusement, I began making the occasional light-hearted sculpture, using found natural objects like twigs, branches, and bones, combined with other common materials like steel wool.
My art has been influenced by many things throughout the years. I taught and continue to teach art to people from kindergarten through college, helping them get in touch with their inner artist and enjoy the process of making art. Teaching college students to overcome their fears of drawing and creative expression, their fears of getting judged negatively, their attitudes that they “can’t draw” or “have no talent” has been moving and affirming to me. Teaching drawing has renewed and strengthened my love for drawing and sketching, and I’ve filled countless sketch books with the creative musing of my eyes and hands.
In late 2009 my wife and I achieved a long held goal of moving to southwestern Colorado near the Four Corners area. Here, amid the beautiful and varied terrain, I’ve learned to see color differently and this is reflected in my art – I use brighter colors in more complex combinations. Instead of being distracted by the hustle and bustle of the big city, I find that the sights and sounds of nature, the slower pace, the richer sensory experiences of daily life have contributed to an inner calm that is reflected in my work but is difficult to put into words. Because of the abundance of natural materials and found objects here, my light-hearted sculptures have emerged with a life of their own – I call them Dave’s Drifters – and they give me a great deal of pleasure as they populate our yard.
I’m sure the results of the 2016 election will be reflected in my art, as themes of social, racial, and gender justice have always been meaningful to me. We shall see – I hope you check back now and then to see what emerges.