Dustin Van Wechel, Art of the West Magazine, September/October 2018

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September/October 2017 2018

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Dustin Van Wechel

Heading in the Right Direction

By Sara Gilbert Frederick

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n a recent trip to Glacier National Park, Dustin Van Wechel came upon a rugged old tree that stopped him in his tracks. Something about its trunk, which had folded over itself, and the mist hanging in its branches, reminded him of a scene from a horror movie—which gave him an idea for a painting.

“I looked at it and I thought that it would make a great setting for a group of ravens feeding on an animal carcass,” Van Wechel says. “But I wasn’t interested in actually painting the carcass, I just wanted to paint it so that anyone who looked at it would know that’s what was going on.”

That’s exactly the kind of story that Van Wechel loves to tell in his wildlife paintings. He has a flair for the dramatic and looks for opportunities to create emotional connections with the viewer. But that’s not always easy, he says, with wild animals as his subject.

“With figurative work, we can all identify with the emotions,” he says.

“It’s a little more difficult to do that

Rocky Mountain Splendor, oil, 24˝ by 48˝ “Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep are a favorite subject of mine. I find endless inspiration to paint in those moments where I experience the sublime vistas of their high-altitude environments and the bighorns’ regal, quiet demeanor. This painting is the realization on canvas of such moments.”

with wildlife. So I try to create enough drama that people can identify with it. I want them to be able to connect with the painting on an emotional level in the same way they do with a figurative painting.”

The ravenous ravens made perfect sense to Van Wechel. So did the bison he painted a few years ago that appeared to be charging out of the canvas. “I wanted to make the viewer connect with the strength and danger of that bison,” he says. “So I made the perspective from down low, as if the viewer is on the ground, about to be run over by it.”

Van Wechel took that painting to the Masters of the American West exhibit in 2014—his first time participating in the show. It was a large, imposing canvas—and it had the exact effect he had hoped it would.

“People asked me how I did the research for that piece without getting killed,” he says. “It was obvious to me that they were connecting with it in the very way I had intended.”

In 2002, it was obvious to Van Wechel that he needed to make a career change. He had always wanted to be a fine artist, but he assumed he would need a day job in order to make that happen. So after graduating from high

ART of the WEST • September/October 2018

The Duck Pond, oil, 24˝ by 24˝ “This painting is a narrative on the idea of territory. Tolerating a pair of trumpeter swans who have arrived as less than welcome guests, the hooded merganser keeps its distance, preferring it has the pond all to itself.”

school, he went to design school in Tempe, Arizona, and then found a job in the design department of a software company in California.

For eight years, he bounced from corporate design job to corporate design job.

It wasn’t what he wanted to be doing. “Anytime I have to paint, draw, or design for someone else, it’s totally work for me,” he says.

“There’s no artistic fulfillment in that for me.”

And it wasn’t just a day job. Van Wechel found himself working such crazy hours to meet the constant deadlines that he didn’t have any time to try his hand at fine art. So in 2002, he decided to quit and do whatever it took to make it happen. “I just totally jumped in feet first,” he says.

Van Wechel and his wife Yvonne moved from California to the small town of Hastings, Nebraska. “It was the middle of nowhere,” Van Wechel says. “But my wife is from there, and

it was centrally located to the shows I wanted to be in. Plus, it was a very inexpensive place to live.”

Van Wechel took a year to work on painting and build up a body of work. When he had 10 pieces he felt good about, he took them to a local gallery to gauge interest. “I thought she might be willing to hang a piece or two,” he says. “But she was like, ‘Let’s do a show. How long will it take you to finish 18 or 20 pieces?’”

Six months later, he walked into

September/October 2018 • ART of the WEST

y Pie For Dessert, oil, 24˝ by 36˝ “While the title for this painting suggests a particular outcome, it isn’t a foregone conclusion that the mountain lion will succeed in making the magpie his snack. Thinking about the painting from the perspective of the magpie, one might imagine he’s a kind of adrenaline junkie, taunting the cougar, only to fly away at the cougar’s slightest twitch.”

Alpine Nanny’s Club, oil, 40˝ by 30˝

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the opening reception for that show and was surprised to see more than 100 people in the gallery. “I thought maybe my family would fly in for it and that would be it,” he laughs. “It was absolutely amazing.”

Van Wechel estimates that at least three-quarters of the work available sold during that show—which he took as a promising sign. “That launched it all,” he says. “After that, everything started building.”

Soon, Van Wechel was traveling to up to nine wildlife art shows a year, from the Southeastern Wildlife Expo in Charleston, South Carolina, to the Buffalo Bill Show in Cody, Wyoming. For each event, he’d paint between eight and 10 new pieces. It was a grueling schedule, but he learned something at every exhibition.

Along the way, he also decided to move from pastels to oil paints.

He had started working in pastels because they allowed him to work

“While I rarely take on commissions, I’ve been fortunate enough to have had wonderful experiences with the few I’ve accepted; this painting was no exception. Working on this commission with a savvy, and patient, collector was truly a pleasure.”

quickly, but once he started experimenting with oils he knew he preferred them. In 2007, he “stopped pastels cold turkey,” he says, and never looked back.

Pastels were messy and difficult to work with, Van Wechel says. Oils can be both as well, but they also provide opportunities for him to experiment with his work. “The thing I love about oils is that every time I sit down to paint, I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing,” he says. “There are so many ways to paint with oils, and there’s such a richness and a soul to them.”

Working with oils has allowed Van Wechel to play more with surface texture in his paintings. His goal is to be able to paint three-dimensional realism on a two-dimensional plane. “I want to use the surface texture to emphasize the three-dimensional quality of the work,” he explains. But that’s not about trying to create a relief painting in any way. Rather, he uses texture to play with light.

“I build up the light areas and leave the dark areas thin, so they feel like they are receding,” he explains. “There’s a clarity of color that comes from thicker paint; when it’s well lit, it just sparkles.”

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y A Morning Jog, oil, 24˝ by 36˝

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“I often observe pronghorn in the vast, open spaces of the high plains. But for this painting, I wanted to depict this herd of pronghorn in a less common environment and showcase the play of light that occurs in the early morning hours through the trees and brush of a rugged Black Hills, South Dakota, landscape.”

Herd Mentality, oil, 30˝ by 24˝

“For quite some time I’d wanted to produce a painting that showcased the chaos of a stampeding bison herd. The challenge came in reducing the scene to simple forms obscured by the dusty atmosphere, while still maintaining the individual animals within the herd. Simultaneously, I needed to create an undeniable focus on just a few of the animals. I’m happy to say I am pleased with outcome and feel I did manage to succeed in those challenges this painting presented.”

It’s been almost 17 years since Van Wechel gave up the security of a fulltime job to pursue painting as a career. He and Yvonne now live in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he can look out at a majestic 14,000-foot mountain peak from his window anytime he wants. Although he frequently hikes on and around Pikes Peak, he also spends about a month each year out exploring other locations.

Such research trips have replaced the frenetic travel schedule for shows early in his career. Instead of going to nine shows each year, he now only plans for two shows that require multiple paintings: one with his galler y and the other with the annual Masters of the American West.

Van Wechel would love to lay all of his completed paintings in a row to see the evolution of his work. Even without actually doing that, however, he knows that he’s become significantly more complex in terms of composition, better at the subtlety in each piece, and more skilled at the textural quality of his work. “It’s obvious to me that, as an artist, I’m improving,” he says. “And I’m still heading in the right direction; there’s always more to do.”

Van Wechel has never regretted the decision to leave the corporate world and become a full-time artist. He does, however, laugh when he remembers

thinking that, once he was working for himself, he wouldn’t have to worry about deadlines and schedules. Deadlines, he now admits, have kept him in his studio well past bedtime many nights, and prepping for shows means his schedule has to be almost as rigid as it was when he was working in the corporate world.

In fact, Van Wechel credits a big part of the success he’s had so far to what he learned working for ad agencies and corporations: “Always do what you say you’re going to do,” he says. “You have to meet your commitments. To be a successful artist, you have to run it like a business. It’s absolutely true, even though we all hate to admit it.”

It’s a fair tradeoff for being able to do something that he enjoys so much. “This is a great life,” he says.

“I’m having a lot of fun. There’s definitely a lot of work to do, especially when I’m prepping for a show, but I have no complaints.”

Sara Gildbert Frederick is a writer living in Mankato, Minnesota.

September/October 2018 • ART of the WEST