David was born in El Paso, Texas and spent much of his life in Austin, Texas. Initially he began his undergraduate career attending Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, pursuing a combined degree program for Biology and Art. He attended the program for two years before returning to Austin to complete his BFA at the University of Texas in Austin, with a primary emphasis in painting. He earned his MFA in Metalsmithing in 2007 from San Diego State University. David taught in the art department at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Arkansas for 10 years. During 8 of those years, he developed and headed the Metalsmithing and Jewelry Department. He presently lives and creates work in Penland, North Carolina. His work embraces the craft of Metalsmithing and it’s collected history of techniques and objects. The resulting works rendered in metal, mixed media, and hand made artist books are vehicles to communicate ideas surrounding identity and social commentary, or forays into material and process-based work. He has work included in the collections of the Arkansas Art Center, National Ornamental Metal Museum, Yale Contemporary Craft Collection, and the Renwick Gallery. "Art has always been a place for me to process the things I have internalized and reveal new insights from the experience, it is my voice and my hand gently pushing and pulling to move towards something better. The sculptural objects, jewelry, and prints presented in “A Spoonful of Sugar” are the artifacts of the process of reflection, offered here to insight constructive dialog between observers. The work will focus on four primary goals: recognition, memorialization, education, and promotion of change. Key concepts analyzed in the works are: the inability to act when faced with a pattern of brutality against others, the negative automatic perceptions or biases directed at black men contrasted with their perception of self, the need to memorialize individuals unjustly killed, and to learn from the past and not repeat the same infractions or traumas Works will feature visual memory cues tied to familiar objects and events employed here to stir both analytical and emotional responses, to fix the topics with greater emphasis in the mind of the audience to prompt discourse during and after the exhibition.”
