Born in 1949 in Deep River, Ontario, Canada, David James received a graduate diploma in journalism at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario in 1972. He joined CBC Radio (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) where his last position was as the Paris correspondent. In 1983, he earned an MBA from York University, Toronto and joined an international management consultancy.
He was introduced to hot glass in 1994, at a summer camp run by a father of European glass art, Erwin Eisch, in Frauenau, Bavaria. A year later, James was blowing glass at the prestigious Orrefors glass school in Sweden. In 1997, he worked with U.K. pioneer cast glass artist, Colin Reid. James opened his first studio in 2001 in Montréal, moving it to Sutton in southern Québec in 2004.
Visits to the world’s largest sculpture parks in England and the U.S. catalyzed his desire to create large scale sculpture. His first works in black granite were created in 2008.