‘Meet the Artist’ will feature Craig Whitcomb of Lewiston

Artist Craig Whitcomb of Lewiston, curator of Valley Art Center in Clarkston, will be featured at the first Meet the Artist session of the season Oct. 1 at Whitman County Library on Main Street in Colfax at 7 p.m. The sessions are sponsored by the Colfax Arts Council.

One of the most eclectic artists to be featured, Whitcomb has entered banner designs in the first two years of the H’Art of the Palouse project sponsored by the Arts Council, His first banner featured the aging grain elevator along SR 195 between Pullman and Chambers and his second, now hanging at the south end of Main, is an abstract of Palouse Falls.

How does he describe his art training over the years?

“Well, I took workshops and classes when I could; ‘did’ all the museums in Europe; and studied privately with some great but nutty people...I think that often goes along with great artists.”

His variety of style depends entirely on subject, he said. He works in a number of media: watercolor, acrylic, pastel, colored ink and colored pencil. He admits his favorite is watercolor. He has series of paintings of Russian, English, Chinese, American Indian, Korean and southwestern subjects. Five years ago, he was selected to show in the International Miniature Show in Florida.

Whitcomb served 20 years in the Air Force in military intelligence. He retired from the service in 1980 and he and his wife took the opportunity to travel. It was during that time that he both studied art and taught art in Korea, Japan and China and in the U.S.

Over a period of 12 years he made study stops at Gonzaga and Evergreen in Washington; Seton Hall in New Jersey and Oregon State. He earned a bachelors degree in education at Lewis Clark State College and a masters in education at the University of Idaho. He wound up certified to teach English, History, Business and Economics at the secondary level and as a lecturer at the university level in history and English.

He and his wife have both had family in the valley since 1880.

The Meet the Artist series presents an artist each month in an informal setting. Because the library will be under construction for a major remodeling this fall and winter, the series will be curtailed after October until the project is completed.