Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Trevor Dahl. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Trevor, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

For many years it has been a dream of mine to travel the world painting large murals. There is such an opportunity with murals to share an uplifting and meaningful message with a large audience, and change someone’s daily experience of their neighborhood and community for the better.

As an artist you can hone your craft and find your voice in the safety of the studio and the canvas, but it can be a real challenge to shift into murals. How does one break into the medium and find work if you don’t have a portfolio proving you can do it? Where I live in Salt Lake CIty, there aren’t many legal places where you could practice.

Over the years, I did my best to find any walls I could and start building my skills working at a large scale. Developing an efficient process takes time and experience, so it took many years of making small, unpaid murals wherever I could before I felt like I had a professional product, and started to get some paid gigs.

Eventually there came a time where I knew I had a real opportunity to level up my mural work. I was renting a small art studio in a dilapidated warehouse in the industrial zone of SLC. The building was huge, ugly, and slated to be demolished in the next couple years so I knew it was a great chance for me to create something epic with total creative control.

I asked around and was able to borrow a scissor lift from a neighboring business for a week. I invested in a few hundred dollars worth of paint and cans, a paint sprayer, and cleared my schedule. The surface I wanted to paint was 25 x 80 feet, so 2,000 sq/ft – 10x larger than anything I’d attempted before. I was working with almost zero budget so I needed to do something that packed a punch but was inexpensive to create.

I ended up painting the entire wall blue and then doodling all over the entire wall without any plan – total stream of consciousness. This is a method I had honed for years using markers on paper, but never at this scale. I did all my doodling with black spray cans, which was a very fun, committal process that really requires you to adapt and go with the flow as the piece evolves. It was pretty intimidating but over the course of 7 long days I finished the mural! It was memorable, joyful, unique, and added so much personality to the neighboring apartment buildings. During the process, one of my neighbors – a local radio station KRCL 90.9 – asked me to extend the mural onto a portion of their facade, adding about 200 sq/ft and the money they paid me was able to cover the cost of my materials and tools invested.

I timed the mural so it ended on the day of the yearly neighborhood block party, so a ton of people came out and saw the final piece. I made sure to take a lot of videos for social media and it got a significant amount of engagement from my local community of SLC. That piece was the catalyst for a few bigger jobs that year, and some lasting business relationships. Since then my mural business has really grown and a few years later, I’m busy as ever. I can look back to that project and know that’s when things started to really pick up for me.

It was a big risk to create that piece – it was pretty terrifying to put myself on the line doing a mural so much larger than anything I’d done before. However, besides the time invested it wasn’t that expensive to front the materials and it ended up getting covered anyways. I didn’t ask for permission. It just took a big push of confidence – to have a big idea and figure out how to follow through and actually make it happen. In that moment I leveled up and when you’re getting started in this career those sort of challenges are necessary to become who you want to be, for yourself.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is. Trevor Dahl, and I’m an artist and muralist. I work under the moniker “Good Happy Stuff” and I’ve become known for my style and message behind the brand. My aesthetic is a balance of whimsical humor and tranquil spirituality. I’ve always been interested in spirituality, psychology, nature, animals, and pop culture, and I’ve figured out how to combine all of that into really fun, soulful art that is easily relateable to just about anyone. Our culture and society feels kind of devoid of soul and my goal is to try to address that problem by using art to bring that back into public spaces in a way that unites people on a human experience level – transcending cultural differences, the political matrix, etc.

Good Happy Stuff basically stands for the idea that amongst all the struggle and tragedy of this modern life, reality is still inherently good and if we can remember that, we create a better society and live more meaningful lives. It’s so easy to get down on all the bad things… but art can help uplift us out of that and remind us that there is always a silver lining and a chance for optimism.

So that’s been my mission and I’m always working at it. I make a lot of paintings and drawings, do art shows, host community drawing groups, and have been creating a lot of public art in the Salt Lake valley. The city has been growing really fast and I want to be a part of the burgeoning culture.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The best part of being a creative is figuring out how to harness your joy and passion directly into supporting myself financially. My goal in creation is to be open to what is coming through me, what wants to be created. Where is there life energy waiting to be harnessed, what am I interested in exploring right now? That freedom is awesome but it can be tricky when you’re freelancing and hustling the art… You have to balance the needs of the soul and the desires of the market. I found it’s pretty stifling if I create thinking about the market. So I’ve created systems for myself, to stay pure and work with my soul, but make sure it’s serving me commercially.

For example, I do a lot of figure drawing and plein-air landscape drawing. I’ve made sure that I’m always doing that work on nice paper in standard sizes because while It’s mostly for practice, people want to buy them and I make sure they’re easy to frame and present around town. I love figuring out those streamlining processes because as I build up those tricks and systems I can really just live my life following my fleeting interests and it translates into financially supporting myself.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I had some major breakthroughs in my thinking and philosophy learning about Jungian psychology and cognitive function. A lot of people are familiar with Meyers-Briggs personality type but it is a simplified gimmick based on the principles of cognitive function developed by Carl Jung. It’s such a window into understanding yourself and other people, and helped me realize my natural strengths and best strategy for self-improvement. I really recommend anyone to find out their personality type and learn about the framework if you’re feeling stuck or lost in life.

In a similar vein, the autobiography of Carl Jung, “Memories, Dreams, & Reflections” was a life changer for me and set me off on a long journey of working with my unconscious, dreamwork, and therapy. This journey has played a major role in my art, spirituality, and figuring out how to exist in peace and harmony.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://goodhappystuff.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodhappystuff/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trevordahhhl