David Harber for Alys Beach

David Harber’s studio is set in the countryside near Oxford. It was a rainy day but we were lucky to have some dry spells so we could go out and discover David’s impressive sculptures. David and his team were exceptionally welcoming and it was a real joy seeing his workshop and also his beautiful home. This story was shot for Alys Beach and commissioned by Devote Studio in South Carolina. Alys Beach is a Luxury beach community on Florida's Gulf Coast which is also holds one of David’s sculptures, The Mantle II within a pocket park.

Read the whole story written by Carlee Sizemore here and read just a few paragraphs below.
Assistant: Georgia Quinn

While David’s own journey to becoming an artist was anything but linear, the wisdom that only time brings makes it clear that it was meant to be, and perhaps in many ways, seemingly foretold. 

David attended Dartington Hall School in Devon, England. At fifteen, he left school and began work as a thatcher apprentice, then as a potter. During this time he developed a rudimentary knowledge of shape and form. His career progressed along a path that spanned countries and continents, with each vocation contributing to a vision of creative certainty. 

“I was a very competent rock climber, and I managed to do a tiny bit of film work while rock climbing. I heard that there was an expedition to climb unclimbed mountains in Patagonia, so I said, ‘Well, I’ll go.’ I’d never climbed a mountain, and I had never been in snow and ice, but I thought, ‘It can’t be that difficult.’”

“It’s really difficult,” David says wryly. “If someone asks you if you want to be a cameraman climbing unclimbed peaks in Patagonia, just say ‘no’.” 

He continues, “I’m really good at leaps of faith. I knew nothing about barges, metalwork or theater, but we decided it would be a really good idea to take a barge and convert it into a theater. My friends were buying them and turning them into traveling hotels. I put my theater barge together and didn’t turn any money, but we had great parties.” 

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