Young Palettes

With schools increasingly under attack from budget cuts, Susanne Dassel’s Academy provides a precious resource in instruction

By Ubah Pathan

Photography by Seth Freeman

Like the completed suites from reality home-decorating show “Trading Spaces,” the walls of Dassel Art Academy are draped in bright colors that make for an inviting atmosphere. But instead of sofas and chairs, the Academy’s rooms are composed of frames, sculptures and easels. Against one wall stands a baby grand piano, its surface crowded with years of student work. Adjacent to the instrument is a life-size mural of oceanography, complete with a giant squid.

A Prince William County institution for over 20 years, the Dassel Art Academy continues to fill the fine arts education hole left by an overextended public school system. 

“Art is life,” Academy owner and founder Susanne Dassel, 66, exclaims with lavish flair.

Art in Education
The nation has witnessed a downward trend in fine art lessons in public schools since the 1980s with the advent of such standardized educational metrics as 2002’s No Child Left Behind, a spinoff of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This was quantified by a nationwide 2008 study from the Center on Education Policy, which found that school districts were reducing instructional time for art and music, sometimes by as much as 50 percent, in favor of English and math. And with no assessment data in the art arena, many public school systems are putting limited funds to use for “concrete” subjects.

While art is considered part of the curriculum for No Child Left Behind, the federally mandated program does not provide any specificity on instruction time or express lessons that must be taught, making it easy to cut. Virginia has no arts education assessment requirement and, according to the Arts Education Partnership, there is no arts requirement for college admission. Exacerbating this already strained condition for public school art programs is the economic downturn of recent months, resulting in heavily overcrowded art classes, teachers who do not have the time to explore topics or form relationships with students to develop talent, and formulaic, one-hour-a-week teaching sessions. 

It’s the environment Dassel works to alleviate. Her students come from all over Northern Virginia seeking specialized training. “They want more out of art than they are getting in school.”

Artistic Beginnings
The Dassel Art Academy was created in 1987 with only two students. It started out of Dassel’s home, and marketing was simple word of mouth. The present day finds the Dassel Art Academy in the same location, but with over 50 students and modern technology for art creation. 

“She used to volunteer at my elementary school, Hunt Elementary in Fairfax County, helping with art. She opened up the art program to a lot of material we had never done before,” recalls Sasha McMurrer, 41, Dassel’s daughter. Dassel adds, “Even back then, I would teach in pods with 30-plus students in a class for a very small amount of time. It was too huge, too large, and the lessons were very structured. There was no real art experience in the process.” 

Dassel moved onto teaching in a private school but ultimately found more satisfaction outside of the structures of formal educational institutions. 

“It is frustrating schools, and parents find money for soccer but not for art,” she says. “Why is that?”

Artful Instruction
Dassel’s teaching methods infuse small class sizes (each group is limited to eight) with hands-on experiences. She does not specifically direct her students in what they must do, instead encouraging them to tap into what they love and then pushing them to go beyond their comfort zones. In one exercise that features nature as its focus, Dassel has the students step out into her front yard to interact with plants and insects. 

She pushes pupils to move beyond the one-dimensional when illuminating subject matter. In a previous class, a student painted a large pine tree as it looked in the winter landscape of that yard. Upon completion, Dassel had the student paint the same tree in the other three seasons so the child could learn different facets of art by way of his own process. 

“He resisted and at the time bemoaned the task, but now it’s the project he remembers first,” Dassel says, noting that she also dedicates herself to understanding students’ points of view and develop ing those outlooks. 

Develop is a word Dassel uses often. She repeatedly expresses how art is about developing positive reinforcement. “I want art to stay with these students throughout their life, to get kids away from just watching television or getting on the computer which is depriving them of so much creativity,” she says. “This is what public schools can’t provide, making children think about what art means to them.” 

For the long run. One of Dassel’s connections is Patrick Berran, who came to Dassel as a boy of 10. Guiding him through the years with projects in foreign mediums, Dassel introduced Berran to a deep love for art. Graduating in 2002, Berran went on to study art at Virginia Commonwealth University and is now a painter residing in New York City.   

Art in Life
Dassel’s father was Herbert Dassel, a commercial artist in pre-WWII Germany. Living in Berlin, Herbert Dassel made movie posters and advertisements for German businesses, and it was this talent that saved him after the war, when he was imprisoned in a Russian POW camp. Facing a firing squad, Herbert Dassel’s talents helped spare his life. “Don’t shoot Dassel,” they said, “he can make propaganda posters for us.” 

Following Herbert Dassel’s release from the Russians, the family moved to Cologne, Germany, but fears of advancing Communist Russia forced the family to flee to Canada, where Herbert Dassel and his wife made a living as non-commercial artists. Dassel picked up the mantle of art and studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, majoring in illustration. After raising her five daughters as a divorced single mother, Dassel continued on in the family business. “My parents encouraged me to paint,” she says simply.

Honing the Future
It’s this encouragement she wants to pass on to others who have the passion.

“I want to give them a base for whatever they want to do in life, to give them the self-esteem that comes when a project is conquered,” Dassel says. Her students have gone on to study at the Savannah College of Art and Design, the Universities of California and Virginia Commonwealth University’s top-ranked art program. Many attend for art education, but others go for architecture and, in one case, medical illustration. Some have returned after graduation and continued learning with Dassel.

At the end of the year, her students exhibit pieces in a private show. Just as in “Trading Spaces,” the show and Dassel’s academy process elicit delighted responses to the advancements made. 

(May 2009)

Tags: art, Dassel Academy, Education