After completing his tax return recently, Anthony Pontius says he felt pretty good about using the term “artist” to describe his occupation.

“I really feel like not only I am an educator, but for the first time in my life I’ve felt really good about saying I’m an artist,” said Pontius, who is nearing the midway point of a three-year stint as the Des Moines Art Center’s visiting artist. “I’ve put down ‘artist’ before, but it was never that bold.”

Though at 33 he’s still younger than most of his adult students, Pontius has already established himself both as an artist who is exhibiting nationally and as an experienced art educator.

Prior to coming to Des Moines in August 2005, Pontius was a visiting artist and lecturer at the University of Kansas, where he received a master of fine arts degree with honors in painting in 2004. He has taught at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, where he earned his undergraduate degree in painting and printmaking with highest honors in 2000. He also taught at the Lawrence Art Center while a graduate student.

“I’ve actually been teaching since my junior year in undergrad,” he said. “They hired juniors and seniors for a Saturday school program to teach adults drawing and painting. It was my first taste of education, and I kind of fell in love with it.”

Having been on both sides of the classroom lectern, Pontius appreciates the relative rarity of good artists who are also good teachers.

“I’ve had some professors who were great artists, but they were awful teachers,” he said. “They really just kind of told you their story, and you had to gather what you could from that. But then, I’ve had some really amazing artists who were also great educators. They really practiced the art of teaching as well, and I’ve tried to model myself after that. I try to be as intense a teacher as I am an artist.”

Pontius said he was initially nervous that his teaching schedule and community work with the Art Center would hamper his productivity as an artist.

“But in fact, I’ve been working more with my own work than I have my entire career, and that’s amazing,” he said. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve done eight exhibitions, and I’m sending work out this week. My career is taking off on that level as well. I’m showing nationally, and that was my goal by the time I was done here. So I’ve already achieved that.”

In Sacramento, Calif., three miniature paintings of his are among a group exhibition of about 25 artists, at the invitation of an art collective called the Art Dorks. In New York City, some of his paintings are in a show called Leave New York.

“That (New York exhibit) is already getting some recognition, and it may actually be traveling,” he said. Locally, his paintings can be seen at the Moberg Gallery.

The Art Center’s visiting artist program, formerly known as the artist in residence program, has since 1948 invited artists to work and teach in the museum’s studio program. In addition to teaching adult and children’s drawing and painting classes, conducting workshops and lecturing, each visiting artist is expected to lead community art projects with Greater Des Moines schools and community services agencies.

Prior to Pontius, past visiting artist Barri J. Lester completed a major mural in 2004 for Orchard Place. More than 200 feet long and 30 feet high, the mural tells the story of the ways the organization has served troubled youths. Pontius said his goal is to find a comparable major community project to complete next year.

“I really would like to do a larger-scale project with the city of Des Moines and involving at-risk youth, which is basically a function of my outreach,” he said. “I really want to leave the city of Des Moines something that will involve the kids, but also an expression of my gratitude for all the hospitality and experiences it has provided me. And to show that it can be done by anybody, that anybody can go out and do these sorts of things and get involved and to make the community stronger and more positive for youth.”

The visiting artists’ involvement expanded from classroom teaching and lectures to include hands-on community art projects about 15 years ago, said Peggy Leonardo, the Art Center’s studio programs director.

“It was interesting to me, because I took Anthony around Des Moines to see all the projects that have been completed by past visiting artists,” she said. “It was impressive because they’re all still there. That’s just the visible portion of what they’ve done, because there are other projects that haven’t resulted in murals.”

Some of the past projects include work with the AIDS Project of Central Iowa, Bernie Lorenz Recovery Inc., NBA Ramsey Home’s Alzheimer’s unit, middle school art students and an annual art summer camp organized by the Art Center and the Art Educators of Iowa. Upcoming projects involving Pontius are planned with Oakridge Neighborhood Services, Children & Families of Iowa, Mentor Iowa and Youth Emergency Services & Shelter.

Pontius recently completed a three-month project at Hiatt Middle School, in which he worked with students to paint an elaborate 8-foot-tall, 12-foot-wide mural depicting a theme of respect for diversity.

“I went through a lot of processing trying to figure out how to get them involved with their hands as much as possible,” he said. “We kind of talked about what the idea of diversity is and how respect plays a role in reaching diversity. We really couldn’t come up with a specific image. It was a very eclectic mixture of kids; respect was coming out of just being together. I pointed out to them, ‘We’re respecting diversity right now.’

“We put together a mass of all the kids and made an image out of that, and we also found an image of other kids on each other’s shoulders, and they’re all raising a banner which says, ‘Raise your respect, uplift your diversity.’”

After envisioning the mural, the students were taken through an advanced version of painting by numbers with Pontius, who outlined coordinated shapes and guided the students in placing about 60 different colors.

“All the shapes are pretty intricate, so they have to be pretty careful about how they put the images down,” he said. “I think they’ve been pretty amazed that they’re actually painting.”

In the studio classes he teaches, “what I’ve been trying to do is give the students an experience that they won’t have through the schools,” he said. “I’ve been told they’re already getting the fundamentals in the schools, so I try to involve them with non-traditional, more contemporary approaches to art-making where you don’t have to rely on those fundamentals or notions of what art should be.

“I’m always trying to do new things and trying to experience new ways of working. I think by default, I kind of bring that to the kids. I was a little nervous to try that; I thought maybe some of the superiors may have wanted more traditional approaches. But the best response I’ve heard from the instructors has been, ‘I can’t believe you’re keeping their attention for 2 1/2 hours.’ And the kids just seem to love every project that we’ve done.”