Master Touch, Tahiti & Bronze, a collectors 'unique one of a kind bronzes ' .

D. Halverson, Sculptor

Born: 1945 Minneapolis, U.S.A.

Resident of Tahiti since 1981

I was born in the land of 15,000 lakes, among rivers, forests, streams, marshes and the Great Lake Superior. I have sailed, canoed, swam, hiked and frozen half to death in most of the state. I've grown up fishing and messing about in various water craft since I was a pre-schooler. In winter, the lakes were used for ice skating and ice boating as well as prepared with small transportable cabins for ice fishing. The fluid motion of water with its backdrop of reflected foliage, scintillating light and color piercing through trees and clouds after an intrinsic part of my artistic creative expression.

My great grand mother studied art at the Chicago Institute of Art in the latter part of the 19th century. She taught art and was extremely talented. I count her among with my grand father, a poet and sculptor, and my mother, also a painter, as my early influences.

I started with oil paints at the age of four years and primarily worked in that media until late adolescence when I started carving wood. At the University of Minnesota, I started casting my work in bronze as there was a large well equipped sculpture department with a foundry and ceramics department as well as numerous acetylene welding stations. My fascination with working directly with wax as primary medium, than using an investment mold to encase the finished wax sculpture, then finishing the process by burning out the wax in the mold and then pouring molten bronze into the void, has never lost its luster.

I studied under Richard Randal, Fred Sauls, John House, Robert Mallory and Katherine Nash. My summers at the time of my years at the university were spent working for Doctor Katherine Nash, the head of the sculpture department. We worked at the Crepeau Dock Works on Lake Minnetonka south of Minneapolis.

After four years at the university, I started my own atelier and worked in various mediums; bronze, stainless steel, ferro cement, copper, mild steel. I created enough large and medium size (1 meter to 7 meters) sculptures to pay my way to South America where in 1968 I had a one man show of large format oil paintings at the Colombo Americano. The show sold well and I was able to travel to the town of Misaualli, where the Misaualli River joined the Napo River on the east side of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador. The Napo is a tributary of the Amazon. I am basically a water person so, I decided to build a raft and have a bit of fun. With the help of two Australians, Russell and Lina Porter, a ten meter catamaran of dug-out canoes complete with a thatched roofed cabin that was constructed in three months.

After construction, we collected visas, supplies and food in Quito Ecuador, returned by land to Misaualli and began our three month voyage down 1500 miles of uncharted totally wild pristine river, complete with rampaging rapids, pistol packing gold prospectors and malaria infested mesquitos. There were no roads and only very sparse settlements. I returned to the U.S.A. and built a foundry on the land I purchased in northern Minnesota. In the three years between setting out for Seattle in 1972 and my arrival back in the U.S. in 1969, I completed numerous works of sculpture, painting as well as a large twelve ton monumental ferro-cement sculpture for the town of Jonethan, Minnesota.

In Seattle, I started construction on a small voyaging sailing vessel, 7 1/2 meters long. Three years later, I completed construction and began sailing around Vancouver Island in Canada and the San Juan Islands in northern Washington. I carved wood at that time with a small chain saw and chisels, completed a large welded stainless steel and bronze sculpture for a client in the east and set out to sea finally towards Tahiti. I sailed into San Francisco harbor in the late fall of 1979 and worked as a welder for a ship yard in Sausalito before sailing on the Catalina Island where I put together a sail making and repair shop for a year.

Then, I set sail for Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. After three months preparing for my voyage to the southern hemisphere, I set sail and after a month at sea, arrived in May of 1981 at Taiohai Bay on the island of Nuka Hiva. I spent a year sailing among the Marquesas and then arrived at Tahiti, I was invited by the local government at Papeete to construct its first Fine Art lost wax bronze foundry. I have resided since then in the districts around Taravao. My foundry and atelier is in the District of Afaahiti, up on the plateau overlooking an islet called locally Motu NoNo.

The unique one of a kind bronzes that I have been creating in Tahiti reflect the movement and sensuality of life in Polynesia in the immense Pacific Ocean which gives its joy and rhythm to those of us who dwell here.

Halverson, Dec. 1997

Afaahiti