D​avid Van Sice was born in Rochester, N. Y. in 1949. His family moved to California in 1950 and to Tucson, Arizona in 1951. After arriving in Tucson David became very ill and spent much of the next six years in a local hospital. The halls and lobby of the hospital were decorated with large, beautiful paintings and sculptures. He stated that as he marveled at the art, “The art drew me in and I felt a warm comfort engulf me”. When he was eight and confined to his bed his aunt gave him a rather advanced coloring set. He finished it quickly and his family was amazed at the talent shown by someone so young. In that moment, he recalls, he realized he had been given a gift. He promptly, though naively he admits, decided to become an artist. Initially he taught himself, but later throughout high school and college he took every art class that was available to him and ultimately, in 1978, received his B. A. from the University of Arizona in Art Education. He taught art for six years in Arizona public schools, but in the mid 80’s, with a steady decline of art in public education, he retired from teaching and started a business as a freelance artist and graphics consultant, worked for an art gallery as their picture framer, did illustrations for design agencies, painted backdrops for small church productions, took on a few commissions and worked for several print shops in California. He began participating in open invitation shows with the College of Fine Arts Senior Show at the University of Arizona then an opening show of a private gallery in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, in the library of San Bernardino Valley College in California, and in a Studio Walk sponsored by The Artists League of San Bernardino while he shared studio space with other artists geographically associated in studios on Benedict Street in San Bernardino, affectionately known as “The Benedict Street Group”. He had to set his art practice aside to focus on raising his family for much of 1986 through 2001 when shortly after the events of 9/11 he collapsed from severe emotional and physical exhaustion. In September of 2014, PSA Art Awakenings in Tucson helped him regain his passion to paint. As a result of his involvement in PSA Art Awakenings he entered three pieces in the annual show at the offices of the Community Partnership of Southern Arizona where he was awarded First and Second place ribbons in the Drawing category, a Third place ribbon in the Painting category and cash prizes for the Advertising Award and the People’s Choice Award. He has sold a dozen other pieces in various shows, entered numerous pieces in other Calls for Entry, exhibited dozens of pieces in the PSA Gallery in Bisbee, Arizona and had thirty-five pieces in a local gallery that has since closed. He continues to work consistently on series and projects and has had art consigned at locations locally. In 2018-19 he worked on several series and exhibited a set of forty-eight small abstracts in Tucson’s main library in August of 2019 out of an ongoing series now surpassing one hundred.