There’s a long, narrow room on the second floor of the Langroise Center for Performing & Fine Arts. It has a door at either end. Each door has a different number. Two doors, designating two different rooms, 211 and 219, and each door opens into the same space.
Apparently intended to be multiple offices and/or classrooms, it instead sat unfinished when the building opened in 1994. Longtime art professor Garth Claassen, who officially retired from his full-time post this past May, was looking around the new building when he noticed the space just down the hall from his office.
“I was part of the first wave of people to get into the building,” Claassen said. “I had a key to open this and, to my astonishment, there was this long hallway. The floor was bare concrete, no ceiling or anything like that.”
For roughly a decade, the space was used as a classroom. Once the drawing classes that were housed in the spot were relocated to other rooms in the building, Claassen began to utilize it as an art studio. The long wall between the two doors, approaching 100 feet in length, became the focal point of the entire space.
“It’s been sort of like a huge drawing board,” Claassen explained. “I sometimes use it to test paint. Sometimes I make notes on ideas I have for titles.”
Paintings and drawings hang on the wall. He said the texture of the wall itself occasionally became part of the art as he drew and painted. Lines, colors, scribbles and words cover large swaths of the wall. The artistic history of the wall itself, titled “Lost and Found,” is being featured at the Stewart Gallery in Boise over the summer.
But now, with Claassen leaving his job as a full-time professor, he’s clearing out nearly three decades of work and memories. Rolled-up papers, completed canvases, boxes and boxes of sketchbooks. He said he isn’t sure what will become of the space but he hopes his colleagues find as much value in the odd-shaped space as he has during his tenure at the College. Two part-time adjuncts, Jason Large and Margaret Pope, have been hired for full-time instructor roles, though neither will specifically fill the same role that Claassen did. When he was hired in 1994, it was to be an art historian who managed the Rosenthal Gallery of Art at Blatchley Hall. He fulfilled prominent fellowships; he continued to create and show his art while teaching at the College. The role evolved through the years to include more art instruction but he never surrendered the art history class.
In fact, he’s coming back this fall – a one-time deal, he insists – to serve as a part-time adjunct, teaching one course.
“It’s an art history course,” he said. “I’ll be in two days a week.”
The studio on the second floor of the Langroise Center for Performing & Fine Arts is in the process of moving from campus to Claassen’s home a block away from campus, where he’s building a studio in the back yard of the home he shares with his wife. One wall, of course, will be left unobscured. For the artist to tack up mylar and Tyvek paper for his drawings, to test paint, to jot down notes to himself.
To keep doing what he’s done at the College since 1994. Because, even though he’s retired as a full-time professor, he’s not finished as an artist and he’s not finished with Caldwell.
“It’s home,” Claassen, who is a native of South Africa, said with a smile. “We own our house. We love our neighborhood. I’m getting my studio built. So we’ll hang out here until we can’t.”
The College of Idaho has a 132-year-old legacy of excellence. The College is known for its outstanding academic programs, winning athletics tradition, and history of producing successful graduates, including eight Rhodes Scholars, three governors, and countless business leaders and innovators. Its distinctive PEAK Curriculum challenges students to attain competency in the four knowledge peaks of humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and a professional field—empowering them to earn a major and three minors in four years. The College’s close-knit, residential campus is located in Caldwell, where its proximity both to Boise and to the world-class outdoor activities of southwest Idaho’s mountains and rivers offers unique opportunities for learning beyond the classroom. For more information, visit www.collegeofidaho.edu.