Drawing Attention to the Ordinary: Artist David Chatt
It's been well over a year since this interview was recorded and it's finally seeing the light of day. Life happens, projects come up, and this wonderful conversation and a handful of others were recorded in 2023/2024 and never released. This backlog of recordings is Season 8 of the podcast, The Light Of Day series.
In the 80th episode of Perceived Value, host Sarah Rachel Brown is in Seattle, WA over the Thanksgiving holiday. It's November of 2023, and Sarah has set up her microphones in David Chatt's guest apartment, which she's fortunate to stay in for the week. It's a charming and cozy apartment and reflects David’s eye for design and impeccable taste.
David and Sarah's friendship has evolved from benefactor/artist to friends to chosen family, and the two begin by sharing how they were brought into each other's lives. David speaks to how his creative practice began, how his parents' talents inspired him, navigating between following his passions and monetizing his abilities, the preciousness of studio time, his relationship with his things, the importance of a good editor, and a fascination for rocks.
I have spent my entire adult life sewing tiny glass beads, one to the next. I have spent as much as a year to create one piece. I am a pioneer, an inventor, and one of a few who have gained recognition for beadwork as a fine art/craft medium. My work has taken me all over the United States and abroad as a lecturer, exhibitor, and teacher, and is included in public and private collections, including a recent acquisition by The Smithsonian’s Renwick Museum. My achievements have been chronicled in books and periodicals, and in 2006 my career was recognized with a retrospective at the Bellevue Arts Museum. I have received a number of awards, including the grand prize at the 2020 Ireland Glass Biennale. In 2006 I accepted a three-year residency at Penland School of Crafts where I built a hot glass studio and studied ladle-cast glass. At the end of this residency, I returned to working with beads, but struggling with tools that were unfamiliar and allowing myself to consider other ways of working was invaluable. The time I spent living in this community and taking a break from my usual way of working, offered me an opportunity to think differently. The process of becoming adept at something, which challenged me, also made me a better teacher. I am planning to move permanently to the Penland area this spring.
