Keith Vanderlin Artist Biography
25th August 2026
Bio
I was in the 1966 graduating class at the Williamsport High School. Our 60th class reunion is scheduled for this summer, and I plan to attend. During my 4 years at the WHS I was more interested in sports than either art or photography. After high school I attended Gettysburg College and majored in the Biological Sciences. As part of my liberal arts education at Gettysburg College, I elected to take several art and literature classes including Drawing and Modern Dance. Suddenly art became important to me. My parents gave me a 35mm camera as a graduation gift. I still have it. In 1970 I enrolled in Temple University’s Intern Teaching Program where I earned an MEd in Science Education. Concurrently I gained 2 years of public-school teaching experience at the Vare Junior High School in South Philadelphia. I taught 8th grade Physical Science. At the time I lived with my wife Sandra in a center city apartment on 13th Street and Lombard.
After 2 years Sandra and I left Philadelphia wanting to travel. From 1972 to 1974 we explored many National Parks. I began making landscape images with my Gettysburg College graduation gift, a Richo Singlex camera. At the time I was making images with Kodachrome film. After traveling I took an analog photography class with Terry Wild in Williamsport. I left Pennsylvania and moved to Connecticut where I joined a community of people interested in photography as an art form. I worked at the Willimantic Camera Center while Sandra attended a graduate program at the University of Connecticut. We parted ways and eventually divorced.
While at the Willimantic Camera Center I made a portfolio of images and applied to the Rhode Island School of Design. I was placed on the waiting list, but eventually I was accepted into the MFA program. I packed everything I owned into my red Volkswagen square back and drove to Providence Rhode Island to experience the life of a graduate student, photographic artist and college teacher in a world that was totally foreign to me. While at RISD I worked parttime for the Wheeler School, the Providence Country Day School and Brown University. I was busy. After earning my MFA in Photography I was hired by RISD for a temporary one-year position in the Photography Department to teach parttime and manage the equipment room. I married again and became a stepfather times 2. In due time our daughter Abbey was born. Life was full. However full-time teaching positions were few and far between and houses were out of our price range. In 1984 we moved to Pennsylvania in a very large U-Haul truck. The red Volkswagen square back was history. Our destination was an old farmhouse, a “fixer upper”, in Loyalsock Township. We had the high hopes of finding employment in Williamsport.
For two years I worked as a freelance photographer and tried to remodel “this old house”. Freelance photography didn't appeal to me, and I struggled with home remodeling, which depleted our savings. I started my search for teaching jobs at the Williamsport Area Community College. I knocked unannounced on Dean Dan Doyle’s office door, where I introduced myself and proposed my vision of starting a Photography Program there. To my surprise, he seemed to be somewhat interested in the idea. Eventually I handed in a resume and was added to the parttime teachers’ list.
In due time I was called in at mid semester to teach a class in Photojournalism because the instructor had taken a leave of absence. I was very excited about the opportunity, but disappointed because there was no lab component to the course. Students in the Photojournalism class were required to have a 35mm film camera for assignments, but they had their film developed and printed at Hoyer’s, which at the time was in downtown Williamsport next to Franco’s Restaurant. As a believer in “kinetic” learning and trained at RISD to learn by doing, I searched for a suitable space to use as a darkroom. In the basement of the Academic Center, I found a one enlarger darkroom used by students who were working on the Yearbook. I do not remember the logistics or the sequence of events, but before the Photojournalism course was over each student in the class developed one 35mm 24 exposure roll of 400TX film, made a contact sheet from the negatives and enlarged a negative or two using the lone Besler enlarger located in the darkroom closet. In short that is history of how the Photography classes started at The Pennsylvania College Of Technology.
In 1989 I was hired by the Pennsylvania College of Technology as a fulltime Instructor in the Graphic Design Department. Photography was a very popular course, and I enjoyed teaching it. At the end of each semester, I exhibited student’s work on campus. It was an important part of their learning process. At one point the administration agreed to fund a “student gallery” space in the Campus Center. We selected the student lounge on the second floor of the Campus Center. With a $5,000 budget it was converted into the 291 Campus Center Gallery in honor of Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 New York gallery. Today the Pennsylvania College of Technology has a prime exhibition space, The Gallery at Penn College. It has proven to be one of the premiere exhibition spaces in Central Pennsylvania. Last year I exhibited recent works at the Gallery some of which will be on display at the Artspace Gallery in August.
I retired from Penn College at the age of 73 having had the joy of teaching there for 33 years. People often ask me if I am enjoying retirement. It has taken me 3 years to develop a positive attitude regarding retirement. I miss the collegiality of teaching, but I miss the students most of all.
I was in the 1966 graduating class at the Williamsport High School. Our 60th class reunion is scheduled for this summer, and I plan to attend. During my 4 years at the WHS I was more interested in sports than either art or photography. After high school I attended Gettysburg College and majored in the Biological Sciences. As part of my liberal arts education at Gettysburg College, I elected to take several art and literature classes including Drawing and Modern Dance. Suddenly art became important to me. My parents gave me a 35mm camera as a graduation gift. I still have it. In 1970 I enrolled in Temple University’s Intern Teaching Program where I earned an MEd in Science Education. Concurrently I gained 2 years of public-school teaching experience at the Vare Junior High School in South Philadelphia. I taught 8th grade Physical Science. At the time I lived with my wife Sandra in a center city apartment on 13th Street and Lombard.
After 2 years Sandra and I left Philadelphia wanting to travel. From 1972 to 1974 we explored many National Parks. I began making landscape images with my Gettysburg College graduation gift, a Richo Singlex camera. At the time I was making images with Kodachrome film. After traveling I took an analog photography class with Terry Wild in Williamsport. I left Pennsylvania and moved to Connecticut where I joined a community of people interested in photography as an art form. I worked at the Willimantic Camera Center while Sandra attended a graduate program at the University of Connecticut. We parted ways and eventually divorced.
While at the Willimantic Camera Center I made a portfolio of images and applied to the Rhode Island School of Design. I was placed on the waiting list, but eventually I was accepted into the MFA program. I packed everything I owned into my red Volkswagen square back and drove to Providence Rhode Island to experience the life of a graduate student, photographic artist and college teacher in a world that was totally foreign to me. While at RISD I worked parttime for the Wheeler School, the Providence Country Day School and Brown University. I was busy. After earning my MFA in Photography I was hired by RISD for a temporary one-year position in the Photography Department to teach parttime and manage the equipment room. I married again and became a stepfather times 2. In due time our daughter Abbey was born. Life was full. However full-time teaching positions were few and far between and houses were out of our price range. In 1984 we moved to Pennsylvania in a very large U-Haul truck. The red Volkswagen square back was history. Our destination was an old farmhouse, a “fixer upper”, in Loyalsock Township. We had the high hopes of finding employment in Williamsport.
For two years I worked as a freelance photographer and tried to remodel “this old house”. Freelance photography didn't appeal to me, and I struggled with home remodeling, which depleted our savings. I started my search for teaching jobs at the Williamsport Area Community College. I knocked unannounced on Dean Dan Doyle’s office door, where I introduced myself and proposed my vision of starting a Photography Program there. To my surprise, he seemed to be somewhat interested in the idea. Eventually I handed in a resume and was added to the parttime teachers’ list.
In due time I was called in at mid semester to teach a class in Photojournalism because the instructor had taken a leave of absence. I was very excited about the opportunity, but disappointed because there was no lab component to the course. Students in the Photojournalism class were required to have a 35mm film camera for assignments, but they had their film developed and printed at Hoyer’s, which at the time was in downtown Williamsport next to Franco’s Restaurant. As a believer in “kinetic” learning and trained at RISD to learn by doing, I searched for a suitable space to use as a darkroom. In the basement of the Academic Center, I found a one enlarger darkroom used by students who were working on the Yearbook. I do not remember the logistics or the sequence of events, but before the Photojournalism course was over each student in the class developed one 35mm 24 exposure roll of 400TX film, made a contact sheet from the negatives and enlarged a negative or two using the lone Besler enlarger located in the darkroom closet. In short that is history of how the Photography classes started at The Pennsylvania College Of Technology.
In 1989 I was hired by the Pennsylvania College of Technology as a fulltime Instructor in the Graphic Design Department. Photography was a very popular course, and I enjoyed teaching it. At the end of each semester, I exhibited student’s work on campus. It was an important part of their learning process. At one point the administration agreed to fund a “student gallery” space in the Campus Center. We selected the student lounge on the second floor of the Campus Center. With a $5,000 budget it was converted into the 291 Campus Center Gallery in honor of Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 New York gallery. Today the Pennsylvania College of Technology has a prime exhibition space, The Gallery at Penn College. It has proven to be one of the premiere exhibition spaces in Central Pennsylvania. Last year I exhibited recent works at the Gallery some of which will be on display at the Artspace Gallery in August.
I retired from Penn College at the age of 73 having had the joy of teaching there for 33 years. People often ask me if I am enjoying retirement. It has taken me 3 years to develop a positive attitude regarding retirement. I miss the collegiality of teaching, but I miss the students most of all.