David Wight
1971–
David Wight was born in Bellingham, Washington in 1971. After growing up in the same area, he went away to college at Washington State University to be as far away as possible without leaving the state.
After graduating in 1994 with a Business and English degree, Wight realized he needed to buy himself a couple months before getting a job. He embarked on a backpacking trip through the Caribbean that ended up being a soul searching adventure filled with waterfalls. On the island of Dominica, he visited Trevala Falls and spent an entire day studying and experiencing the biggest falls he’d ever seen, watching the patterns of the water as they would break apart and fall all the way down to the pool. The sound of the falls dissipated as he walked away and at the same time, Wight felt all of the stress of his life fall away, too. In this moment, he realized it was the sound of water that was nourishing his nervous system and healing his mind and body. After water almost took his life at age 11 during a family trip floating down a river, the moment of bliss and terror that first gave him an awareness, appreciation, and a reverence for the power of water, its beauty and its transformational qualities, David Wight’s life was changed on that island.
READ MORE +He knew he must work with water, although he had no idea what that meant at the time. Wight started making glass, learning how to blow it into water fountains. A couple years into working with this medium, David Wight realized that glass is the only medium that could truly capture the fluid nature of water and hold a shape and sculpt it. Thus began the next series on his artistic path. He started to capture water and the essence of it in his own unique style and taught himself how to ‘make’ water out of glass.
At the Pilchuck Glass School, Wight had a mentor who instilled in him the drive to ‘just make the water’ by understanding what water looks like, feels like, and soon, he determined that this was through a wave. People resonate with water if they can recognize it and how they best do that is in a form of a wave. David Wight now expertly takes a slice of the breaking wave and makes that in glass so that it can resonate with the viewer and capture the essence of its power and healing in their homes and offices.
Wight is a self taught artist who simply knew what he wanted to—needed to—make and knew it wasn’t being made by anyone else to teach him, so asking questions wasn’t an option. It was up to Wight to try and do and create, to feel how he wanted to work with this delicate material and make it capture the essence of water that was unique to what he was feeling.
Glass is an incredible teacher because it’s a living, fluid material that resonates with feeling and thought and will remind the artist when you are inline or out of bounds instantly. Wight’s artistic process is trying to not hold on to what he thinks and as fast as he can, like he learned when he was 11 and drifting dangerously down that river, to let go of preconceived ideas of where he thinks he’s going and be aware of the gifts that are being offered in the moment as he captures the living natural qualities of water and movement.
Wight is inspired by many friends, painters and mentors like Walfrido Garcia, James Coleman, Michael Godard, and Ashton Howard. What all of these friends and mentors have in common is that they paint from their heart. They let what they feel dictate where their paint brush goes and what colors they’re using. This is very similar to his sculpture work that requires the artist be present and one with the materials he is using.
Accomplishments
All of the best professional surfers have David Wight Wave sculptures as trophies because they perfectly embody the essence of what they have spent their lives becoming. To be able to harness themselves and put themselves in an incredibly challenging place because they are one with the water.
Additionally, Wight was given the opportunity to be the Princess Cruise lines glass artist for 5 years. He is also Disney’s only glass artist and enjoys having work featured in galleries across North America.
To inquire about collecting more artwork by David Wight, attend one of Park West’s online auction weekends or contact a sales associate at either sales@parkwestgallery.com or (866) 995-0904 ext. 4.
