Meet David Siever

Here we have a fantastic artist who’s small scale works tell massive stories. David Siever showcases the darker side of humanity through their depictions of horrific past events often glossed over by the more picturesque history books. Below we chat about fans’ reception to their work, shoes, and snails.

Have a look below and check it out.

Two Truths and a Lie (answer at the end of the interview)

• I am the child of two psychoanalysts

• When I transport my figures I try to make them feel at home by talking to them

• There is a book about me that bears my name

Would you rather…

have snails for hair or large owls for feet? Please explain your answer?

At first I was going to say large owls for feet, but then as I thought it about if the snails were of the escargot variety and edible, I’m sold.

Some questions with David Siever

What kind of stories do you gravitate towards with your figures?

History is often presented as the stories of heroes and heroic action. Yet who reveres or even remembers the first woman sent to the electric chair, a sad husband cuckolded by a Civil War General, the hapless soldier mutilated in battle, the fading strength of the failed polar explorer still proud to die for the glory of Britain – all fading into history, barely remembered, as we will be as well, all “footnotes.” My ceramic sculptures are inspired by these events, even more so by the people that history has forgotten, the “footnotes” of history. Through creating sculptures I hoped, however briefly, to bring the stories of these lost figures to life, to have them step out of the photographs, lithographs and letters that comprise their only record and let them reemerge in three dimensions. I find myself drawn to stories containing a lot of pathos. Desire, ambition and human cruelty usually find themselves at the center of my work; while the subjects are often tragedies or pointless atrocities; they also contain the humor inherent in human frailty.

What lead you to work with such a small scale?

My sculptures are small, like the lives they represent. My figures are also the exact size of the action figures I played with as a child, creating stories and imagining who I would become. Lying on the floor, manipulating the figures, I could enter their world, and they became the characters of my fantasies. Like their childhood counterparts, the sculptures, my “inaction figures” have entered the domain of dreams, a place far distant from their origins. Each roombox or dollhouse contains a vignette at once horrible, familiar and funny. I see myself as a visual storyteller, part of a long tradition of narrative sculpture.

What is the best interaction you have ever had with a fan of your work?

Whenever I get someone who is right off the bat familiar with the event its always a great interaction. (Is that…. Napoleon III… and is he… masturbating?) I am a bit of a kook and I find the people who respond to my work best are usually also kooks themselves which can lead to some interesting reactions. There was the former lighthouse keeper who wanted to talk to me an hour about lighthouses (Yes I built a dollhouse lighthouse, No I am not a giant fan of lighthouses, Yes I am familiar with the Fresnel lens). Working with historical events you can sometimes run into some prickly subjects though I have yet to meet any descendants of any figures I have sculpted though I sometimes like to imagine the conversation (“Did you sculpt my great great grandfather fucking my great granny?”).

What shoes do you wear most often? Why?

I wish I could give a more interesting answer but I currently have a pair of running shoes with sole inserts I have been wearing often.

Aside from actual historical events has any other medium influenced the work you produce?

I often find myself influenced by stories of my personal life and of those around me -- the inherent human drama of life. The sculptures are my attempt to find the universal emotions hidden inside the particular. All history is construction, a story created to explain a given set of facts, and my sculptures are no different -- they are personal interpretations, as much about me as the overt events depicted. Another influence of mine has been toys, especially action figures. Often times I will find myself looking up a childhood GI Joe or other figure whose pose or other certain feature I might want to include in my work. Or many times there has be certain dollhouse item that will influence a scene (Is that a dollhouse dominatrix kit?). Up until getting a Masters in Ceramics I had very little formal training. In many ways, this was an advantage, as it has allowed me to been able to follow my own path, uninfluenced by the trends of what was fashionable or contemporary in the art world. In doing so I developed a passion for sculpture. Loving the feel of clay in my hands finding again my childhood fascination in making my own toys, and writing my stories with them.

Do you think art has to have a purpose/meaning? Does art has to have a purpose or meaning?

Do I think art must have a meaning? No I don’t think it has to by any means. But for me personally I find myself much more attracted to works with meaning. As for purpose. I think art inherently has a purpose, I am reminded of the James Baldwin quote, “The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.”

Where would be your dream venue to present a collection of your work?

Why I would love to be part of a historical museum relating to a person or event I depicted or even better a historic home or library of a President that I have sculpted, I recently went to Grover Cleveland’s Birthplace Museum and found myself wondering internally if they would be interested in a scene of Grover abandoning his love child as he went off to run for president (He won… twice). If anyone is reading this from the Grover Cleveland Birthplace Historical home in Caldwell New Jersey call me.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

My art is inherently political and narrative, using the data of the past to comment on the present. I would like to think my sculptures are a wink:  a wink at myself, at my family, and at the sad and beautiful state of humanity. My work exists at the apex of a triangle whose base is cultural history, filtered through the lens of memory and submitted to the subjectivity of the perceiver.    My pieces express “true stories’ gained through my painstaking research in archives, personal accounts, and historical narratives, an honest and heartfelt memorial to what I have termed the “footnotes” of history.  At the same time, I am able to find the narrative of myself and my family in the lives of others, crafting my tales through them I offer stories of masculinity (albeit often toxic), of great men and their downfall, of the wars between men, between men and women, freaks and outsiders, the agony of the immigrant and the loneliness of the explorer.

The work is also a wink at history.   We like to think history as a thing that exists, something accessible; on the contrary it is something forged from an incredibly imperfect and fallible record dependent on whatever has gotten documented and whatever piece of the information somebody believes to have remembered. History is uncovered and then used as a tool for future discoveries. I imagine my work as falling somewhere between the dialectic poles of  Augustus Saint- Gaudens and Dinos and Jake Chapman.

Two Truths and a Lie Key

• Lie: I am the child of two psychoanalysts (one is a psychiatrist)

• Truth: When I transport my figures I try to make them feel at home by talking to them

• Truth: There is a book about me that bears my name