Former law enforcement officer returns to his roots with local art school

POCATELLO — A man who’s held a myriad of positions in security, law enforcement and technology has now brought an art school to the Gate City.

Owners Tarl Lambson and Debbie Lambson opened That’s Clever! and are teaching art to people of all ages. For Tarl, who studied animation at Brigham Young University, this studio is a return to his roots and his passion.

“We just jumped in with both feet,” Lambson said. “It’s been terrifying but I love it.”

When Tarl began attending BYU, he dreamed of becoming a professional animator for a major studio like Disney or Warner Brothers. But he soon discovered the field of animation wasn’t structured how he expected it to be.

“They don’t really hire full-time employees anymore. It’s contract work,” Tarl said. “So instead … of going to work for this company, it’d be per project.”

By the time he realized this, he and Debbie had married and he had a family to think about. He decided doing work for hire wasn’t feasible.

He began considering other career paths. For a time, he considered joining the military. Tarl was thankful for the public housing and grants he benefited from during college and felt guilty for not giving back.

“I just felt a need, an obligation, patriotism. I just wanted to do something,” Tarl said.

Rather than leave his family for long stints of time, he decided he could give back in a similar way by becoming a police officer. In 2012, the Lambson family moved to the Gate City so Tarl could be a Pocatello Police officer.

He was a police officer for about five years. Once he left the force, he worked a range of jobs, first security for the FBI and then IT work for the Naval Reactors Facility and then back to the FBI as an analyst.

Despite staying busy with work, Tarl continued practicing his art. He continued to draw cartoons and caricatures in his spare time and worked on commission.

Then in 2020, the Lambsons’ lives changed forever. At the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world, Debbie was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Although they had a lot of fantastic support from their family and medical staff, “it just turned our world upside down,” Debbie said.

Between missing work for Debbie’s medical reasons as well as his own, Tarl eventually decided, “I just can’t do this anymore, so we’ve got to find something else.”

Debbie had seen that Tarl liked working for the FBI, “But it wasn’t anything that he was passionate about, where he’s always been doing art on the side.”

Tarl and Debbie decided running art classes was something he would be passionate about doing — and something he could stick with.

They opened their first location in 2022. Tarl started teaching classes in a single room with two tables.

In 2023, they expanded to their current location at 472 Pershing Avenue, with a larger classroom area. The larger space allows the couple to run more classes and bring in more children, teenagers and adults as students.

They offer courses in caricatures, comic books, character design, digital art and (of course) animation. They also have date nights twice a month, where couples learn how to draw caricatures of each other.

Tarl said he’s seen the sentiment from adults that they’re too old to learn how to do art, and he disagrees. He teaches an 86-year-old student who wants to learn how to draw cartoons on cards for her grandchildren.

“If your brain is willing to learn, you can learn it. If you’re going to tell yourself that you can’t … there’s no help on that. But if you’re really open to it, and want to learn, I can show you how to do it,” Tarl said.

Anyone interested in signing up for classes from Tarl can visit the That’s Clever! website to learn more.