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Douglas Spar was born in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1956. When he was two his parents moved the family of four children to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where seven generations of Sphars had been reared. Douglas began painting and drawing as a child. In 197 8 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history from the Pennsylvania State University.

After graduation, Douglas moved to Tahoe City, California where he made his home for the next twenty years. He began taking classes in ceramics in 1992 at Sierr a Nevada College in Incline Village, Nevada, which were taught by his sister, Carol Sphar, a nationally known potter. She had organized an extensive summer workshop program, which exposed Douglas to many great ceramists including Steven Hill, Mary Baring er, Mark Lancet, and Fred Olsen.

Working with clay became a passion for Douglas as a means of creative expression and a life-enriching pastime. He exhibited locally with the North Tahoe Arts Association participating annually in the first four Tahoe Art Tours.

Returning to Pittsburgh in 1997, Douglas now works out of his home studio. His current fascination with sculpted dragons is inspired by Chinese, Japanese, and Thai ceramic, bronzes, and architectural ornamentation. As a creature of the imagination, Asian dragons are symbols of imperial power and fertility and are mythologically the only creature to fear its own strength.

Working with stoneware and porcelain clay, the artist sculpts the dragons; bisque fires them, and finishes them in a raku kiln. The glaze firing takes the piece to 1860 degrees Fahrenheit in about an hour. Firing two or three dragons at a time, tongs and welders gloves are used to pull each red-hot piece with molten glaze from the kiln. The dragon is then placed in a sandpit lined with combustibles, which immediately ignite. Flames bathe the piece for about one-minute then they are smothered by placing an inverted trash can over the pit thus reducing the amount of oxygen in contact with the glaze as it cools. Metallic lusters and colors develop during this phase of production and the results are variable but often quite spectacular. No two pieces are identical and the artist is absorbed with craftsmanship in the sculpting and how the glaze works with the shape and texture of each dragon to bring personality to the creation.