Meet David Buckingham | Sculptor

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Buckingham and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, why did you pursue a creative career?
I’ve had two distinct creative careers. Before I morphed -somewhat unwillingly- into a metal sculptor, I spent twenty-odd years writing TV commercials, radio campaigns, and print ads for advertising agencies, where I worked with the best typographers, filmmakers, designers, photographers, storytellers and art directors in the game. In good advertising, as in good art, the idea is paramount. From the idea comes the execution, and wrestling a concept into life as an advertising campaign was thrilling. The possibilities of words and visuals is endless. I never went to art school, but working alongside such mega-talents allowed me to develop, perhaps through osmosis, an ability to express myself in a way completely unrelated to commercial interests. In the ad game you’re part of a creative team, and there is a constant cacophony of voices shouting in your ear, from the brand manager to the client to the account execs, all of whom are trying to stick their fingers in your creative pie. Now, as a metal sculptor, I work alone. The only voice I hear is my own. But it’s still about that old one-two punch: concept and execution.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I never intended to become a full-time sculptor. I was a well-paid career ad guy who messed around with metal fabrication on weekends, mostly making brutalist, one-of-a-kind furniture pieces, as a way to blow off steam. But then life intervened in the form of a terrible addiction -heroin, if you must know- that took me from a corner office on Madison Avenue to the mean streets of Skid Row in Los Angeles and, eventually, two stints in County Jail. It was the lowest point of my life, the absolute nadir of my existence, and after jail and rehab I was forced to take stock of myself. I’d been in the high-stress ad game for more than 20 years and I’d been to rehab more than a dozen times. Perhaps this wasn’t working. So I resolved to put my efforts into my metalworking practice. I made my first attempt at an actual artwork one Saturday afternoon in July 2002; I thought it would be a failure and I’d return to my furniture making. I didn’t know it at the time, but my life changed that day. Sculpture sank its silky fangs into my neck and what was supposed to be a one-day lark became a full-time obsession. I got my first solo show in 2005 at the age of 46 and I’ve never looked back. Now I’m working ten times harder for ten times less and I’m (mostly) ten times happier.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I am not only an accidental sculptor, I’m also an accidental Los Angelino. I never intended to move to the City of Angels; I came here (from Australia) for rehab and, once busted, never left. What was supposed to be a one-month temporary stay has become a 22-year journey. My only prior experience with Los Angeles was visiting the city from New York to shoot commercials, and at first, like a true new Yorker, I was resistant to the charms of Los Angeles. But over the last two decades I’ve been seduced by LA and now -gasp!- I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. When the freeways are moving and the skies are clear, it’s magic. We’ve got the beach, we’ve got the mountains, we have deserts high and low, and they’re all within easy driving range. I live in Mt Washington and my studio is in downtown Los Angeles, so most of my time is spent in this area, east of La Brea. A typical day would start out with hiking in the canyons by my home, then breakfast at La Abeja, an old-school Mexican restaurant famous for their heuvos rancheros. Then a trip to the Arts District, the historic core of DTLA, MOCA, the Broad, and for kicks I like to take visitors to the piñata district, which is a trip! Then dinner at Stella in Silver Lake and a nightcap in Highland Park.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are so many people who have either influenced or helped me along my path to become a sculptor that naming them all would be a statistical impossibility. Most of these people have no idea they were important to my development as an artist; rather, they accepted me and my numerous personal peccadillos and allowed me to be myself around them. They, in turn, were themselves around me. Much of my work comes from memory, and I’ve often mined personal experience for artwork decades later. However, if a solid-gold revolver were held to my head and I was forced to name one individual who had the greatest influence on my work, it would have to be Ray “Cowboy” Kelly, the founder of New York City’s Rivington School, the infamous Lower East side collective of welders, anarchists, performance artists and weirdos. I met Ray by chance in the early 90s, when the Lower East Side was still wild and wooly, and I soon found myself dividing my time between various ad agencies and Ray’s basement welding studio on Broome Street. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think a chance encounter with a guy in a cowboy hat would lead, 25 years later, to a career as a metal sculptor. But that’s what happened. Thanks for ruining my life, Ray!

Website: buckinghamstudio.com

Instagram: buckinghamstudiodtla

Image Credits
All images: Gil Ortiz