Artist: David Swenson
David Swenson, MINNESOTA
My work is about Nostalgia and Play.
I'm inspired by motifs and patterns from folk and historical decorative arts, but I’m also a fan of punk and street art with outsider tendencies. Pieces are meant to evoke feelings of times past, while incorporating imagery from my own life and inspirations from places i’ve lived, researched, and visited. These objects are meant to embellish the home and daily practices, as well as to provide their services and entertainment.
Swen is a ceramic artist from Rhode Island originally and relocated to Minnesota in 2009 after receiving a Fogelberg Fellowship from Northern Clay Center. Before that he had traveled to study ceramics in Germany at Töpferei Dambeck and decorative techniques in Deruta, Italy, and Bergen, Norway. In 2012 he received a Minnesota State Arts board grant to research integrating his ceramics with sonic arts. He has been a visiting artist and lecturer at the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin and The School of the Art Institute in Chicago. He has taught and is presently teaching in community education and after school programs in the twin cities and surrounding areas
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David “Swen” Swenson received his BFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and was a ceramic intern with David Fredrickson in 2008. He relocated to the Twin Cities as he received a 2009 Fogelberg Studio Fellowship. Swenson is on the Northern Clay Center staff.