* David A. R. Garcia *
Artist Biography - Statement

Born in San Francisco, California in 1957, now lives in rural southwest Washington where he maintains his hot shop and production studio. While completing his landscape architecture degree at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, David became fascinated by glass and studied stained glass with Paul Dufour. Upon returning to San Francisco in 1981, he began his hot and slumped-fused glass studies at San Francisco State University with John Leighton and at the California College of Arts and Crafts with Marvin Lipofsky. In 1987, he built his own hot glass shop and founded David Garcia Glass, a production studio of contemporary hand blown and crafted vessels and sculpture. David has continued his studies with some of the United States' most renowned glassblowers, including Italian master Lino Tagliapietra, Karen Willenbrink, and Preston Singletary at the Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle and Richard Royal at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. And his work evolves continuously, yet organically. Several hallmarks of his work remain constant: rich, intense color, forms that capture the fluidity and motion of molten glass, and striking modern, original design. After twenty years of glassblowing, he has found that he spends more time observing hot glass as a sort of living material rather than trying to control it. He strives to reveal the qualities of movement and expose the soft and flexible aspects of this remarkable medium in his work. David Garcia's glass has been featured in several museum stores, including MOMA in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, Corning Museum of Glass, and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, as well as numerous fine glass and craft galleries throughout the United States. His work is collected throughout North America, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.