Today we’d like to introduce you to Dustin Klassen.
Hi Dustin, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
So the short story is, I am from a working-class family from Maryvale. I spun my wheels for many years, but art was always there for me through many trials and tribulations I went through. I was never the best in any class I took but I just refused to give up and tried to get better every day. There were many opportunities to give up, but I could never get rid of the need to create.
I am living my dream now raising my kids, teaching art, and getting in the studio when I can. The longer versions I typed out are probably way too long and DRAWN out (Dad Joke #1), but here it is. I was born and raised on the Westside of Phoenix, Arizona in a neighborhood called Maryvale. My Dad was a carpenter, and my mom was a homemaker.
Tupac’s words “and though we had it rough, we always had enough” would sum it up best. I am the youngest of 4 kids spanning 13 years between myself and my oldest sibling and 7 years between myself and my closest sibling. So, I grew up always at their sporting events roaming the fields and dreaming of playing. Being from a sports family, it was just THE WAY. I didn’t have any artists in my family and although it was never discouraged as a hobby, it was never considered a “career choice.” I grew up visualizing myself hitting the game-winning shot, but never as an artist at the easel. It was unimaginable.
Through my formative years, I played basketball, baseball, and football all year round. My parents were always coaching and running teams, always involved, and kept me out of trouble. I attended Cartwright School and still remember being really encouraged by Mr. Petrino and remember him being the first one to tell me that art WAS a career and connecting cartoons with art. That’s the first time I can remember being excited about class and not just playing basketball at recess. The neighborhood became riddled with crime and drugs as the years moved forward. I remember a night when at a friend’s house playing basketball, we went inside, and not ten minutes later a drive-by shooting happened directly across the street.
We went out and found “pock” marks in the pillars of the carport the next morning. Not much longer my parents made big sacrifices to move to the Avondale area. I resented it for a long time but am still in touch with most of the people I loved from the area. I began drawing cars, animals, and sports stars that I would get to autograph for me to hang in my room, really getting addicted to the fact that I could create whatever I wanted to see on my walls. My sports playing days came to an end in High School when I had an operation at 15 years old after I blew my knee out in the streets of downtown Phoenix in a basketball tournament. Art became even more prevalent during the months of being laid up.
I went to Westview High School and though I was never the best in class, Ms. B always encouraged me by planting the seed that if I just keep working at it anything was possible in art. Over the next few years, I relied on drawing heavily to get me through the emotional toll of long periods of being laid up due to blowing out my knee over and over and needing surgery twice more. My last operation was a complete knee reconstruction aimed at holding my knee together until I was grown enough to have it replaced. I graduated high school on crutches.
I then entered Estrella Mountain Community College. I was lost with what I wanted to do in my life, so I took classes from multiple disciplines searching for a career that would “pay the bills” as I had been constantly told art would not by most people in my world. I still indulged in my passion, though at the time the school’s Art program was in its infancy and was being held in traditional classrooms. So, I would take a drawing class and an Art history class in the same room on the same day.
I was never the best in any of the art classes I had taken there either, always looking up to those who I felt had more natural ability than I did. During this point, I also had to start working full-time managing before and after-school programs to stay afloat. The split shift schedule allowed me to work early in the morning, go to class during the middle of the day, and then work again in the afternoon leaving the night for more classes. The schedule was grueling as studio classes are always twice the length as normal 3 credit classes!
I had two pivotal moments that led me from drawing to painting. EMCC did not have painting classes then. I wanted to transition in and didn’t know-how. I looked to Glendale Community College for that leap and however you look at life, be it dumb luck or call it destiny, I wound up in Dr. Richard Hillis’s class. He taught me more about drawing in the first three weeks of a painting class than I had learned in a year and a half at EMCC and I was absolutely hooked on painting. I was, again, nowhere near the best in the class as he had a group of seasoned artists who took his classes religiously and most were head and shoulders above my ability.
I did improve enough to sell my first painting because of his class, and I remember him telling me that since I had made money off of a painting I could now consider myself “a real Artist.” The second pivotal moment is attending a show at the Phoenix Art Museum called “El Greco to Picasso, Art Beyond Isms” on Valentine’s Day of 2003. My parents purchased the tickets (I keep the stub in my studio by my easel) for me, although they knew nothing about art except for the fact that I loved it. They knew there would be master paintings for me to see since I was obviously not giving up on art and only going deeper into it.
I’ll never forget the way seeing “Luncheon of the Boating Party” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir made me feel, and how the highlight in the eye of the dog drew me in from across the room like a moth to warm light. I was smitten with painting and wanted to go home immediately to paint. I finished my Associate’s Degree at EMCC and became the first in my immediate family to earn a college degree.
As I continued my studies, I headed up to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. I decided that since I was on my own financially, I was going to pursue painting. I heard the same comments from most people who surrounded me.
“You’ll never make a living as an artist; you should make it a minor and study something else!” I had a few friends up there that encouraged me to keep going, two of them who I met in a ceramics class. They have both since passed away and their picture is one of the other things that are always by my easel to remind me of their push. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed in the instruction at NAU and after a year and a half of major financial struggles, I came back down to Phoenix and worked for the Valley of the Sun YMCA Coordinating Enrichment Programs with the hope of saving to further my education again. Those jobs were so much fun as I got to play sports with the kids and teach them how to draw as well.
I ended up taking a job at the University of Phoenix. It paid way better than working in the schools and had free educational benefits though there were no art classes. So, I took Business classes, but they never got my attention. I worked on the phone in Enrollment with students on the East Coast who were interested in the online program. On 6/6/2007 I received a call that I had no idea that would change my life. I had a “hot” call transferred to me which we would get once a day. It ended up being a dropped call. After leaving voice messages and emails, we ended up corresponding with a student with who I had a lot in common. She was coming out from Connecticut to visit her sister who lived in Phoenix.
I was volunteering as a Coach for a Youth Football team, and we had a game after I planned to meet her for ice cream because I never got the chance to meet my students in person. She now recalls seeing me and telling her sister “Watch it be the guy in the mesh shorts!” Indeed, it was. We had hit it off as counselor and student for the allotted time but now that was over, we had hit it off and saw each other again before she left. We spoke every day and within 6 months she was back in AZ again and interviewing for a job in the Valley. She landed it and I flew out to meet her family and to bring her to her new home in Arizona. Disenfranchised with the job, I switched schools over to Grand Canyon University.
During my 7-year career working for the universities, I rarely made art. I would doodle while on the phone, and people would always come by my desk and ask me “what are you doing here? You are wasting your talent.” Eventually, I was asked not to draw while on the phone by my director as my doodles looked different than everyone else’s. I took a few commissions but rarely had the time to give it serious attention. I grew more and more unhappy with life. I had good friends, a close family, and a great relationship going but something huge was still missing in my heart. My health was at its worst and I relied on alcohol to fill the void at times. I had lost what made me whole over the years, and one day I decided I needed a break from it all.
I put in an application for a scholarship to Scottsdale Artist’s School. I ended up taking a sculpture workshop taught by Ben Hammond, a Utah-based sculptor on a partial scholarship. Those 5 days changed my life. I knew that I had to create every day and found out it was possible to make a living as an artist. I approached the woman who was formally my student who had now become my live-in girlfriend. I remember telling her that I would rather live under a bridge and paint every day than be in the life I was living. We formulated a plan for me to go back to school to finish my art degree at Arizona State University because even if nothing came from the art, at least I would have my bachelor’s degree.
I had the same feeling at ASU that I had years before at NAU just many years wiser with a stable relationship. On my first day of Painting 1 the instructor said to a group of 25 or so students that “out of the 100 students in the painting program, only 5 would still be painting in 5 years’ time, leaving only 1 or 2 of you in the studio right now who have a shot.” I took over the Drawing and Painting Association as the VP and then President and brought in artists that were making a living using their art to do demos and lectures to show others that it was possible for more than 5 of us to be working in 5 years.
During Summer break my girlfriend and I went back east, I asked her parents for her hand in marriage. We planned a trip down to New York City, visiting St. Patrick’s Cathedral, wandering through Central Park and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After that, we headed to the Empire State Building where I asked for her hand in marriage in the most cliche way possible that ended with a great story for another day.
After earning my bachelor’s degree at Arizona State, I found myself with a degree and getting a lot better at painting, but I was still nowhere near where I wanted to be. That luck/destiny thing popped its way back into my life when I got a call from the Executive Director at Scottsdale Artists School because they needed an Operations Coordinator. Working there allowed me to meet hundreds of working artists and see that it was possible. I learned so much from so many people it is hard to say that I am self-taught with a straight face.
My career was now in the arts, but I was still only painting a day or two a week at that point on my own. In the classes I was lucky enough to attend I still never felt that I was “the best” but I just refused to give up my pursuit. The next pivotal moment came when my now Wife’s career started expanding. She had an opportunity to move back East to the border of Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia to help manage quality control at her company. This would be the first opportunity that I would have to paint full-time. We moved to the woods in West Virginia, with only one car. I would wake up and paint 4-5 days a week for the first year. We lived a half-hour away from a grocery store by car so I would not even speak to another human until 6:00 pm when my wife came home from work.
The first year was difficult and even made me feel that I had made a huge mistake thinking I could become a professional artist. I ended up in a few galleries out there and even one on Main St in Scottsdale in the next year with the determination to push through those blocks. I was all in. No looking back, no plan B. I had direction and my skill was improving every day when Scottsdale Artists School asked me if I would teach a one-day workshop when I was back in the area.
I of course accepted, leading to the first moment in my career where I felt that my dream really could come true. I had always been a Teacher, Coach, and Counselor in my working career so teaching painting was nothing but pure joy for me. I held classes on the East Coast, more in Scottsdale, as well as a workshop in Los Angeles. Just as my career was starting to move in the right direction, we got the most amazing news that we would-be parents.
The studio, once spread across a couple of bedrooms, was now packed up and turned into a nursery and guest bedroom. We then decided that we would be returning to Arizona as we wanted to make sure we raised our child with our family and friends around. We packed up the house in a couple of weeks, loaded the truck, and put her and our beautiful new baby on a plane back to Phoenix. During the drive back across the country alone, I began to think of Arizona. Home. With all its different types of beauty. I began to think of a painting that represents our love for Arizona. Out of that trek came the Oil on Panel painting “A Love a letter to Az!” though it took a couple of years to finish it as being the stay-at-home Dad was the priority. We have since added another beautiful baby to our family during the Covid pandemic.
Now that she is getting a little older, I am now able to be in the studio three days a week. I am also teaching four months a year at Scottsdale Artists School and hoping to add more classes in the West Valley where I still reside. I’m working on a commission a month while trying to finish work that I started prior to having children, with the idea of having enough work for a show. There were so many twists and turns that led me to this point of being able to help others explore their creativity.
Thanks to the many people that helped me along the way, I feel that it’s only right for me to be able to help others who have that same desire to create. Hopefully, I can help them cut years off their experience, so they can get to the level of healing that I have found in art, knowing that no matter where they come from, what their financial situation is, it is possible!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think the main struggles that I can talk about were mainly financial. At Northern Arizona University I was considered a Dependent Student. So I didn’t get the funding an older student could get. My parents made just enough to keep me afloat, but not for me to get enough help and none of the Counselors ever told them that they could apply for a parent loan and be denied, and I could get funding as an Independent student.
So I worked full time on a split shift with the school district, went to school full time, and was still nearly evicted from my apartment. I had a great Aunt who helped me out of that situation, and I was never able to pay her back before she passed away. That is no different from what a lot of college students/artists go through. That’s why I ultimately jumped ship from the idea of becoming a teacher in the school system and went to work at a university. It was a better salary, and I was able to counsel students who wanted to go to school but didn’t have any idea how to get started.
I was able to do this at a high level because I had failed at it my first attempt and learned what I could have done differently. Talking to people I would never meet in person and helping them to start their journey was priceless to me on one hand, but I lived every day and every conversation knowing that I had not finished what I had started. I helped people chase their dreams and I was getting further away from mine becoming a reality.
Once I got back on that track, I went back to ASU, and I was forced to live off student loans like most people in my generation. I would use anything that I could for a substrate including going to goodwill and buying cheap frames with canvases in them already and flipping them around and priming the other side so I had a new canvas and a frame in one.
I would use “offcuts” and leftover scrap wood to prime when I worked at Scottsdale Artists School to be able to afford something to paint on, also cutting up cereal boxes and priming them with gesso to not have to waste good substrates to practice on. There are many ways to get around the problem of the expenses involved with being an artist. People weren’t wrong about the difficulties of being an artist, they were just wrong about my determination and the work I put was willing to put in to make it happen.
Still, to this day, there are tough times financially that we try to prepare for. Galleries are shutting down, I had a meeting with a major gallery in Scottsdale to see my work for them to tell me that they are interested when my children are in school and I can work full time to be able to meet demand, but not until then. So, there is still a major pushback to me living life the way we want to live. There are still family members and friends that snicker and say “I told you so.”
Just a few days ago I had a friend tell me that he thinks “I can actually make it after all.” I am living my dream with an amazing family, awesome students, and creating art that I love at a level that it took my whole life to get to. So just with that, I feel that we did “make it” already.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My work is ever-evolving but the short answer is that I am a painter of nouns. Person, place, or thing. I guess I am known for a style of still life they call ‘Trompe Loeil” which means to fool the eye. Basically, creating a painting that people think is the actual object from a distance instead of a painting of the object. I never really thought of my work in this manner as I want the viewer to know that it is a painting.
My paintings usually start in my head way before the actual painting starts, so I don’t limit myself to just the still life or the Trompe Loeil style but if I see a good idea for a painting and its best done in that manner then I proceed that way. So, I love working in all different genres of painting. I produce these still life paintings that I am known for, but also landscapes, portraits, as well as using the left-over paint on my palette to create abstract pieces out of what would normally be scraped up and sent to a landfill.
Some days you can catch me outdoors painting the beauty of this state En Plein Air, while other days I am doing a portrait or painting the figure. I’ve always just painted to try to understand the world around me better, using it as my therapy in a way. I love creating narratives in my still-life paintings that may never be understood by others and being totally okay with that. I also enjoy trying to capture the feeling of seeing wildlife in their environment or painting a friend’s family pet to try to help memorialize them forever. The feeling you get when looking at a beautiful landscape and wish you could hold that feeling in your soul forever.
I also love creating the work for my family as it grows as well. So, I guess what makes me different is that I know what I am best at skill-wise, but I don’t allow that to be my focus just for the sake of pumping out commercial works, just about every piece tells of me in one way or another. I feel that my work will find a forever home with who it is meant to be with, I never would imagine having pieces of me would be hanging on walls in Europe, Brazil, and across this country from LA to Connecticut.
I am just humbled to know that people actually enjoy looking at something that I created.
What do you think about happiness?
My family first obviously, being able to have a huge part of my kids’ lives every day is the best thing on earth. Being able to watch my wife grow in her career at the same time. Having friends and family around which has been almost impossible in the last few years as it has with a lot of people.
Coaching and watching sports still makes me happy as well, I have seen so many of the kids I coached that have gone on to be great young men and it makes me so happy to see them via social media as they grow and know that my time had a little impact on them.
And finally, teaching and creating art is that last key part that keeps my soul on fire and was really that final puzzle piece for me. When I see a student’s growth after just a few weeks, there isn’t much better than that for me!
Contact Info:
- Email: djkfineart@gmail.com
- Website: www.DustinKlassen.com
- Instagram: @DJKFineArt
Image Credits
Yola Klassen
