Skyway Artist Talk: The Sculptures of David Mack
October 24 @ 6:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Join us in the galleries at the Tampa Museum of Art for a talk with an artist featured in the exhibition, Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration. Ceramicist and educator David Mack will discuss his sculptures and artistic journey. Mack will also point to his connection to David Drake, an incredible artist known for being the earliest known enslaved potter to inscribe his vessels.
Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration is a celebration of artistic practices in the Tampa Bay region, as it is a collaboration between five institutions: the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; the Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design; the Tampa Museum of Art; and the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa. Working together, curators from each institution offer context for the diversity of art being made in Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties.
Talks at the Tampa Museum of Art are free with the cost of Admission.
- Art+ Museum Members: Free
- Not-Yet-Members: $25
- College Students: Free
David Frank Mack was born on April 5, 1944, in Baltimore, MD. Young David would sculpt whimsical statues of family members. David was introduced to the potter’s wheel in high school, and the the obsession with mastering the wheel began. As a Norfolk State freshman, David witnessed the first ceramic teacher demonstrate on the wheel. Professor Howard Johnson instructional techniques elevated David’s knowledge and throwing fundamentals. David Mack earned athletic honors as the first individual conference wrestling champion, football walk-on, and javelin thrower. David was forced to transfer to Morgan State, where he continued to excel athletically, and met his next HBCU Master sculptor, Professor James Lewis.
David Mack has taught art in Baltimore City, MD and Clark County, NV. Associate Professor of Ceramics at Essex Community College, MD, St. Petersburg College, FL. David has published two essays: “Enslaved and Freed”, 2020 Ceramic Monthly magazine, and “Earth, Fire, and The Abolitionist…”, 2023, Ceramics in America”. In 2022, David Mack was commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art (exhibition: “Hear Me Now”: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, SC.) to produce a audio commentary discussing the life and work of slave potter, David Drake. David’s innovative reparations proposal, “The Stolen Bones Restitution Act of 1619” was also discussed. David Mack was recently accepted to exhibit in The Skyway 2024 exhibition at The Tampa Museum of Art.