INTRODUCTION
I want to thank Sharon Scalise for sending me a link to David C. Freda's website. When I first saw the very small pictures of his work on his site my stomach did a flip - could the pieces themselves live up to the promise of the cameos ? I contacted David, he was kind enough to allow eNAMEL to feature his work, and I asked him for some "big pictures"
He preferred to send 'em on a CD so I was on tenterhooks waiting for it to arrive. When it did I couldn't believe my luck - this bloke was brilliant ! Not only was he a dedicated naturalist with a superb eye and highly-developed powers of observation, he was an extremely competent draughtsman/sculptor who knew more about 3D enamelling than anyone I'd ever come across.
His knowledge of and familiarity with the various media allows him to transcend the technical and concentrate on the vision - his pieces are truly "works of art" - an uncommon occurrence in the field of enamelling which, like the mainstream disciplines, is dominated by the vacuous mediocrity of the various institutionally-promulgated "-isms."
We in the West generally fail to recognise our major artists in any useful sense while they are alive. In a more culturally-developed society David C. Freda would be classed as a "Living National Treasure" and treated accordingly - as would several other individuals who've featured previously in these pages.
Allan Heywood
"I probe the world of animals for my imagery. Bird watching, taxidermy, falconry, scuba diving, rock climbing, and mountain biking; experience has educated me to the point where I can express the natural world in an artistic sense.
Some compositions feature realistic "renderings" of animal forms, others are abstractions suggesting a theme with unexpected or surprising results. I share a kinship with past artists whose intimate knowledge of the natural world also provided them with their concepts."
David C. Freda
