David Pearson: The Path of a Sculptor

by Wolf Schneider, Ph.D. Sanchez, Cynthia (Foreword)

Since his arrival on the Santa Fe art scene as a 16-year-old metal chaser at Shidoni Foundry in the 1970s, David Pearson has been working with the ancient magical energy of melting metal. While yet a teenager, he was creating the highly polished patina work on famed Chiricahua Apache sculptor Allan Houser's artworks, and by the time he was 18, he was selling his own elongated figurative sculptures, reminiscent of Giacometti and Modigliani. Best known for his explorations of the female form in a stylized, now signature look, Pearson's bronzes range from the abstracted to the realistic. His ethereal sculptures include goddesses, mummies, songbirds, and a collection called "the uniques." Headquartered south of Santa Fe near Highway 14 on a ranch where he's erected a mini-Stonehenge of rocks arranged to observe the equinoxes, Pearson is inspired by the natural world, by an eclectic array of spiritual influences, and by Santa Fe's legendary art circles, in which he has assumed his own place.

96 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2006