David Franklin

David Franklin carves wood sculptures, inspired by older Northwest Coast art. Over the last 10 years David has completed several public and private commissions, including a 12’ house post and two 32’ totem poles for a private residence in Lake Tahoe, CA, carved with Duane Pasco. He received the largest commission for works installed in the newly renovated Poulsbo Library. Franklin has served as a consultant for the Denver Museum of Natural History. In 2000, he was hired by the Young President’s Organization to be their resident carver for the Alaska 2000 Cruise. David’s work has been exhibited in galleries in New York City, Seattle, and Juneau, AK.

David recently completed a project for Cheney Stadium in Tacoma where he created a school of 11 powder-coated aluminum salmon, each with a color-changing LED spotlight that turns on at night. One of these is 6.5’ long and 18” tall. As part of the Seattle Storefronts Program, this will be the central element in a surreal seascape of three illuminated rockfish in scale with the salmon, and a number of boxes all with local shellfish designs. These shellfish boxes will be all stacked around the lower part of the display and will light up at night. A large sand worm or two with jointed bodies will be crawling on and amongst these boxes and they, too, will light up at night. 2011 GAP funding will support this project.

Read David’s blog post about how the GAP helped him create a new body of work at the Kohler Factory.