David Clement Davies will be your host, guide and teacher throughout your unique stay sculpting and living La Bella Vita in Tuscany through ‘Sculpt Your Way’. David really began his artistic life after University, as an actor and working in the theatre in London, then as a travel journalist and a highly published and award winning fantasy author. At University he studied both History and English Literature, specialising in The Civilisation of The Italian Renaissance and he also co-authored The Insight Guide To Florence. He is a part time poet and publisher, while his novels have been highly praised, won awards and been translated into several languages, including Japanese, Latvian, German, Italian and Russian. Nature, animals and myths are key elements in his work, as well as storytelling itself, that now translates directly into his own sculptures – Visit website
But it was in 2017 that David moved to Pietrasanta to pursue another life-long love, then mostly a hobby, that he had not nurtured enough at school, sculpting. He quickly found it to be not only totally fulfilling, but a truly life changing experience, something he absolutely wants to share with and transmit to guests, friends and students. Art and sculpture should be taken seriously, yet not be something that is too intimidating, or even over-pretentious. David is convinced that for all the academic arguments about what Art is, it is the passion, intelligence and personality of the artist that transmits to the Art and defines it too in the end. There is little more visceral than the power of sculpture though, as you will experience from the works that abound in the town, and whether he can help you find a key to your own greatness and passion, plant a little acorn, re-inspire your talent, or help you just enjoy a new creative experience, his guidance and art holidays are always about engaging the whole person, and finding the artist’s way, to what he believes is about so much more than any individual work.
That vision does not lie in any portentous methodology, school or dogma either, but certainly in mastering techniques and taking them home, bringing skills together and into fruition, but also in having a truly engaged, joyful and memorable time along the way, because surely the living is as important as the art, in that magical place where living itself becomes an art. Thus he will try to engage you on many levels, cultural, historical, social, even political and can add other elements to your bespoke visit, from writing and poetry classes, to drawing on the skills of so many talented people in Pietrasanta, and arranging elements of walking, cycling, yoga and Tai Chi too. David is also a very good cook and one of the highlights of the trip can be his hosting a lunch or dinner up at his mountain terrace home, where work takes place too, under the vines and the gorgeous Tuscan skies.
Travel of course is an art too, but anything you really engage with involves some kind of journey, since life is not a rehearsal, and nor is what we leave behind. In his own journeys David has travelled to many countries, thrown himself from an aeroplane to skydive from 12,000 feet, studied whales from a ketch sailing the Azores, crossed the Namib dessert on horseback, ridden with migrating Zebra in Botswana, toured Romania just after the revolution, written about the monasteries of the Meteora and the trogladyte cities of Cappadocia, followed bottle-nose Dolphins in Costa Rica and written a series for The Daily Telegraph on adventure sports, including Scuba diving, paragliding, water-skiing and land surfing. So join him, and together keep on sculpting your own way!
Sculptyourway 