David Mateo’s journey towards his chosen career in art was anything but average. After all, in the rough, tight-knit, Guatemalan, working-class neighborhood, like the one where David grew up, no kid would dare to imagine a career in art. It just wasn’t done.  How would his father tolerate such a departure from their shared collective reality? Of course, that was exactly the typical reaction one would expect, and the patriarch of David’s family was no exception.  The Mayan culture, as so many cultures around the world, is set up as a male-dominated society.  However, as we all know, many households within such societies are often ruled by its women. Here’s where David’s dreams of an art career got a helping hand. Constantly drawing and doodling from an early age, he obtained the encouragement from his mother to keep his artistic impulses alive and well.

David lived in the second poorest city in Palm Beach County, Lake Worth, attending South Grade Elementary School, one of the city’s many Title 1 Schools. He was able to take some art classes, and one day, at one of the school’s art exhibits, a scout from the Bak Middle School of the Arts approached David about applying to his school. With help from his teachers and other kids who had gone through the same process, he filled out the necessary application forms and set up a date for his ‘Try Out.’ He’ll never forget that day. Full of nervous tension, he went to the Bak MSOA’S campus where he and other potential students were led into a room with four kids at each table. These tables were stocked with sheets of card-stock paper, scissors and tape, and each child was given the same assignment: To build a structure using the least amount of tape as possible. He must have done a good job as he was accepted, and subsequently attended Bak for the next three years. After that, he went onto the Dreyfoos School of the Arts and ultimately would finish his Junior and Senior years at Lake Worth High School, where he was encouraged to take part in the city’s famous ‘Street Painting Festival.’

His schooling, spent predominantly in schools dedicated to the arts, offered him a tremendous education in art that he would have never received attending ordinary schools. Thinking art consisted mainly of painting and drawing when he began, his mind opened to what else was possible. He learned color theory, art history, different styles and disciplines, trying his hand at etching, sculpting and many other mediums.

After high school he went to work on a cleaning crew with his parents. He might have been stuck in that job had it not been for a sign he noticed about a place called Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts, which had glassblowing classes. He had to check it out. Once in the center, watching people doing the extraordinarily hard work of blowing glass into beautiful creations, he was hooked. Determined to accumulate the necessary money to take the six-week beginner’s course, he saved up enough to cover half the tuition and paid the other half with his tax return’s dividend check. This was a determined young man. He began volunteering when he could and the Benzaiten’s staff was so impressed with his abilities and determination that he won a small scholarship that enabled him to take the center’s next level, eight-week course. 

Since then, he has won another, larger scholarship and finally was sponsored by the center, and friends of the center, to be Rob Stern’s assistant at Pilchuk, the internationally famous glass school founded by Dale Chihuly. During this stint he met many hard working professional artists who have made their careers in the field of glassblowing, sharing in their comradery and experiencing their strong sense of community and shared knowledge. He understood the fullness of what it meant to call yourself a professional artist. Yes, it could be fun, but it also meant many long years of hard work to hone your skills and to ultimately develop a signature style that you could call your own. 

He now works at Benzaiten full time, which has enabled him to quit his cleaning job. Working as an assistant to the many different professional artists who rent time at Benzaiten has empowered David and made him proficient enough in his skills so that he now has his own website and is selling his own creations online and through the center.   A career in art is definitely not for the faint of heart.