Jeffery Karlin is a teacher here at Lewiston High School. Many students know him as their geology, physics, marine biology, biology, or astronomy teacher. Some may not know about one of his many hobbies, art.
But for a few more days, they will have a chance to see a variety of Karlin’s works at his art installation in the Lewiston City Library. The library is at 411 D Street, just a block from Main Street, and the show runs from November to February.
Karlin has art both downstairs and upstairs for people to discover. There are even several of his art pieces hung up in a gallery in the event center on the second floor.
For many students, the most familiar of these pieces is a 26-part illustration that used to hang in the Lewiston High School Library named A to Z: A Moment in the Mind. It includes 45 square feet of 26 frames, each holding an image made using colored pencils on paper. Every illustration could stand alone, but they create an interwoven image when placed together. It includes over 100 characters that the viewer can look for and discover their unique stories. All of this stems from a character´s imagination in a single frame below the rest of the images.
In other works of Karlin’s throughout the library, his interests in art and biology combine. He has 17 acrylic paintings depicting nature, and 14 contain wildlife. Karlin said this is because “Almost three decades of teaching vertebrate zoology makes me have this real appreciation for the animals.”
Eight paintings also specifically depict birds. The abundance comes from the particular way Karlin plans his pieces.
“I come up with the scene first. Oftentimes, the animals aren’t there,” Karlin said. “In creating the composition, I orchestrate where the animals are [and] if they work for the composition.”
Stellar´s Jay of Lummi Island is one of these bird paintings that depicts two Stellar Jays on an intricately painted branch, showing the attention Karlin gives, from the composition to the details.
Another painting featuring birds is Coos Bay Cormorants. These birds are found in coastal places in North America, like Coos Bay, Oregon, where Karlin previously worked as a teacher. He includes imagery of Coos Bay in other paintings, such as Cape Arago. This cape is located 7 miles east of Coos Bay.
Many of Karlin’s pieces are inspired by natural places he has observed. He focuses on these places because, as he puts it, “Scientists first see everything in observation.”
With this in mind, when observing the painting Wildfire, a viewer might notice that the firefighter’s helmet is directly in the center of the 3-foot square frame. Karlin did this intentionally to “put people in direct conflict with our own behaviors,” he said. The behavior he is referring to is the bright forest fire that the person is watching.
There is more to the painting than the position of the person though. For instance, the way the firefighter kneels shows that they are a woman. He used his wife as a reference for this image, working on different positions for the hands. He settled on an open hand to show the tension the woman is facing while she has a short rest before going back to fight the fire.
With the painting, Karlin said, “I wanted it to be true to what those people [firefighters] do.”
Karlin described the intentions of the carving. “An issue that is important to me is the recovery of salmon,” he said, “and an issue that is germane to the peoples of the Columbia Gorge, the native populations, is the salmon.”
Following the tears down the totem, they cross four sections, which represent the four dams of the lower Snake River that cause the deaths of thousands of salmon a year. To summarize it nicely, Karlin said, “The only real water crossing those dams are tears.”
From illustrations to paintings to carvings, the gallery encompasses the abilities of Karlin. He explained that he wanted the show to include examples of all his work.
“You know, if nothing else, I’m genuine,” Karlin told the Bengal’s Purr. “There’s a range to my artistic process. I’m not just paintbrush and canvas; I’m not just hammer and chisel. But there is a lot of contemplation for compositional correctness, which to me is a little more important than all of that”.
