My name is David West, and I am a drawer, printmaker, teacher, and bookmaker based out of Homewood, Alabama. I taught in higher education for twenty years before moving to become a full-time artist.

You can contact me at dwestart@gmail.com.

I am originally from Brookhaven, Mississippi, a small town in the South Central portion of the state. I spent most of the first 30 years of my life in Mississippi, studying painting at Mississippi College, a small town a little farther north in Clinton, Mississippi. I left for a time for graduate school for which I went even further South, to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I earned an MFA in printmaking. Mixed in with all that school I worked lots of jobs, finished schooling, got married to a brilliant woman and became a two-time dad to two also brilliant daughters. Recently my family spent five magical years on the coast of the North Atlantic in Gloucester, Massachusetts before moving back into the South. For as long as I can remember I have loved to draw. For as long as I can remember I have taken great peace and solace from the act of drawing and from the process of art-making. While in college I fell in love not only with the serious study of art but also with helping others get better at their own processes. This turned into an almost twenty-year career of teaching private lessons, working as a high school art teacher and ultimately teaching at Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi, Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts and currently at Samford University in Homewood, Alabama. During this time I have had the privilege of working with students from all over the world and seeing them do amazingly brave and inspiring things. I am particularly proud of what my students have done not for what it says about me as a teacher, but for what it says about them as people who want to more fully engage with the world around them. As I have transitioned from a full-time academic into a full-time artist, my view on teaching and its role in my life and what I want out of it have changed as well. What I sincerely hope for all of the students and artists I work with is a life that allows for art to not be an add-on or an extra, but rather to be a central part of the way in which they interact with the world. A life that is an artful one filled with compassion and beauty and curiosity and love for their communities and the people around them. You can find this information in another form along with other information on my CV on my home page if you are so inclined.