Description

Well-known interiors and architectural photographer David Duncan Livingston has been getting hands-on with porcelain. We are showing this new body of work in his first exhibition of bird sculptures. Free Bird Exhibition Reception with the Artist / Saturday, October 25, 4-7PM / Exhibition On-going through January 31, 2026 Poet and the Bench, 11 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley https://poetandthebench.com/collections/david-duncan-livingston David Duncan Livingston is an extraordinary Bay Area interiors and architectural photographer who began creating with clay a few years ago. His practice works wet porcelain the way a craftsman wields charcoal: quickly, intuitively and without erasure. Working from memory, each bird he creates comes from gestures converging in form. What the artist calls "sculptural sketching" in three dimensions, returns bird figures that are raw and refined. His influences range from crane symbolism found in the Ming dynasty to the elegance of Meissen porcelain, with sidebars Giacometti, Brancusi and Voulkos. Like the artistic expression of Brutalist art, David's intention is to embrace imperfection. Pieces emerge from a cone six firing with fingerprints, folds, dents and debris. These "happy accidents" are collaborators, animating the clay with the vitality of the moment. Over the years, David has studied at Haystack Mountain School of the Arts, San Jose State University and College of Marin. Community studios across the Bay Area with their shared kilns and conversations have also carried his work further.