Artist Bio

David C. Randall was raised in Connecticut and Maine and has been a sculptor for over fifty years incorporating many different styles and materials. At the age of fourteen he began welding and making sculpture with found objects obtained at the local junkyard. “As a kid, I was always taking things apart to see how they worked; then later putting them back together again in a new way to see what I could come up with”. In this same way he began making welded steel sculpture. He credits his high school art teacher with nurturing this growth and introduced him to torch welding. Also that time he created portraits of friends and family from clay and experimented with casting them into different materials.

 

He attended the School of Fine Arts at Boston University from 1970-1974, where he majored in sculpture. His formal training was centered around reproducing the figure while working from a live model. Boston University was a traditional school so every day consisted of three hours of studio instruction working from the model either drawing or modeling with clay sometimes creating life-sized sculptures. Completing detailed anatomical studies was also required as well independent projects in wood and stone. In the summer of 1972 he did a work study program in England and has fond memories of hiking the countryside and visiting museums. In Scotland he traveled north to the Orkney Islands to see some of the Neolithic stone rings there.

 

In 1975 he purchased land in Strong, Maine, and there he built his first house, a cedar log cabin. In the basement of the log cabin, he and his partner, Ellen, started a woodblock print card company called Esker Prints and showed his cards and larger prints in craft fairs across the state of Maine. He also built a post and beam studio on the same property where he worked on creating his sculpture. With a newly acquired air compressor and stone carving tools he was able to fulfill a dream of working in stone.

 

In 1995 he started to build his second home, this time a post and beam construction, on third generation family owned land. This is the house where he resides today with Ellen, and is built from the tall white pines that he cut from the property, then sawn and hand chiseled into beams. He is currently working on a 'tiny house' built in the same post and beam style construction. The trees again sustainably cut and sawn on the land his grandfather once used for pasture. The other building materials needed are mostly recycled as well as the trailer it sets on.

 

David learned to make large scale sculptures by constructing armatures from metal and wood at when at BU. This led to building even larger pieces using welded steel found objects and wood constructions from trees and stone later on. The constant construction of buildings also helped him to learn construction techniques as to what would and wouldn’t work, especially in outdoor pieces. He considers some of the buildings he’s created works of art in a sense, his own house not a conventional building, with field stone fireplace and beams made from pealed tree trunks.

 

He walked his property looking for trees with the right curve to make the braces that support the roof of his studio.

His artwork has been shown extensively throughout the state of Maine and he has been an actively supportive member in many local arts groups including:

 

Stone Carvers Guild of Maine, Viles Arboretum outdoor exhibition, Augusta, Maine, Harlow Gallery, Hallowell, Maine, Maine Glass Art, Lisbon, Maine. He has also participated in the 2017 Stone Symposium in Boothbay, Maine and the 2016 & 2018 Viles Arboretum Sculpture Symposium in Augusta, Maine.

 

He has permanent exhibits at Viles Arboretum Sculpture Trail and at Maine Art Glass Studio, Lisbon, Maine.