Creative energy doesn’t ebb when the world stops. So when the pandemic stalled agency work in 2020, Dustin Black turned his lifelong pursuit of creativity on his home.
The career art director—recently named chief creative officer and partner at full-service Minneapolis creative agency Meerkat (formerly Preston Spire)—has twin daughters, who were 6 years old at the time. He’d been planning to turn their family mantra—“Be brave, be curious, be kind”—into a giant banner for their home, and suddenly had the time to make it.
Using felt sourced from New York-based manufacturer Oxford Pennant, Black’s banner infused some much-needed cheer into their basement. He also shared the finished product with the company.
“Oxford Pennant just absolutely loved it,” he said, so much so that they began producing a pennant using Black’s design—and offered him a supply of felt for future projects.
In fact, Black did have another idea in the works: He’d been sculpting a 5-foot-long fish out of foam that was in need of scales. As it happened, at-home cutting machine maker Cricut had also taken an interest in Black’s banner and offered to sponsor his work.
All that was left was for Black to take every hands-on art lesson, from fingerpainting as a toddler to his double major in art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and apply it to a new kind of blank slate. “I had to figure out, what would a felt fish look like? I started playing, and I suddenly had my first fish covered in felt scales,” he said.
Black has been chasing new creative highs ever since, from making ever-more complex scales to cladding his fish in felt flowers instead, then turning to sculpting birds. Each sculpture begins with elaborate sketches, then Black figures out the size and frames it out in metal, wood, and foam.
The Cricut does the tedious work of cutting out the felt, then Black glues on each piece and further decorates it with paint and other materials. Everything is done inside his 25-square-foot home office on nights and weekends.
Since the beginning, he’s involved his girls to “show them it’s OK to try something new and fail” (they now have their own art projects as well). Black also documents the creative process of each piece on Instagram, including his mistakes and how he moved on from them.
“I’m trying to put out there the notion of we’re all beginners, and we’re all figuring it out, and it might look good in the end but it took a lot to get there,” he explained.
His sculptures have been exhibited in galleries, at events and, most recently, for a year at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Having them in a public space “has been a lot of fun because I get random texts from people: ‘Look at what my family group chat is talking about!’” he said.
The pursuit of new shapes, styles, and designs is what drives Black, which is why he’s resisted taking commissions that would dictate what he makes—or worse, copy his previous work.
His latest project, an eagle with feathers made of polymer clay that Black hand-painted, has pride of place inside the Meerkat offices. With the widespread suspicion of AI in creative work, Black knows the value in clients being able to see and touch a piece of art made in-house.
He also hopes it inspires the kind of creativity that drives good work: “We need to be doing new things. We need to be solving complex problems. And we need to use curiosity to approach it.”
Off the Clock chronicles the hobbies, sports, and side hustles of people in the advertising and marketing world. We always welcome your nominations at eva.kis@adweek.com.
This story appeared in the Nov. 3, 2026 issue of ADWEEK magazine. Click here to subscribe.
This story appeared in the Nov. 3, 2026 issue of ADWEEK magazine. Click here to subscribe.
