David Warawa is a local artist doing stained glass art out of Shylar Studio in McKernan. Most notable are his windows in the Misericordia Hospital, St. Agnes Parish, and Gros Morne National Park, where he created an iceberg made entirely out of glass.
What style of stained glass art do you practise?
I’m an experimental glass artist working with special techniques blending different techniques together to create art forms that are new and original.
What’s it like being a stained glass artist in Edmonton?
I think it’s difficult in Western Canada and in Edmonton because people aren’t particularly familiar with what expressions and forms glass can take. They might know more about sculpture and painting but I don’t think they know an awful lot about new, innovative, experimental glass. That would be something you would find more in Sweden or Venice or the United States, but not Edmonton, Alta.
What are you working on right now?
Right now I’m working on a commission for Blackjacks Road House in Nisku. It depicts the history of the oilfield in this area from the great boom in 1947 when Leduc No. 1 came in. So it’s more of a traditional, stained glass panel arrangement as you would see, but my work has branched into the three-dimensional, sculptural, carved and fused form.
What is your favourite piece you’ve ever created?
After much deliberation and contemplation and argument in my own mind, it is like picking a favourite child. Every piece in the whole process of 30 years of development has been the culmination of the time that came before it. At that moment in time, every piece was the greatest piece that could be done. And to move to the next step only made the next piece the greatest to be done.
