As one of three art teachers at East Haven High School, Matt Stevens is tasked with teaching his students to create art and navigate our increasingly digital world.

“I consider myself an illustrator. Even the personal work that I do is in that illustration style,” he says.

Matt is a native of Guilford. He graduated from UMass in 1994 with a degree in illustration and moved back to Connecticut, living in North Haven with his wife, Kelley, and daughter, Emma.

Matt is also a freelance illustrator, publishing art in books and magazines. Recently, he’s been working with the Hungarian branch of a soccer magazine called FourFourTwo.

“[The illustrations] are usually about some event that happened in sports history. It’s sort of a ‘news of the weird,’” he says.

Most recently, he completed a picture for the magazine about a Hungarian soccer player who was drafted by Amsterdam’s team. In the illustration, the soccer player was meant to be homesick.

“They wanted a picture of him sitting, eating a meal from the Netherlands while dreaming about this stew that he used to eat back in Hungary,” Matt says.

Because of the language difference, communicating with the art director isn’t always easy or specific enough.

“Sometimes I don’t really know what the article is about, they’ll just tell me what the scenario is and then I’ll have to come up with an image that reflects that,” Matt says.

Sometimes, he says, he has to press the art directors for more information in order to get the specifics or research, for instance, what Hungarian police cars looked like in 2004.

“I love it,” Matt says. “That’s a fun challenge.”

Freelancing leads him to illustrate for all kinds of magazines from sports to science fiction and even some work drawing company logos, but the business of a freelance artist is inconsistent.

“Most of my jobs come from word of mouth or somebody sees my work in a magazine or a book…and I’ve had some success on Instagram,” Matt says.

Teaching art, however, keeps him entrenched in his craft. At the high school, Matt teaches his students some of the skills they would need to do the kind of work he does, through classes in illustration and design.

“We always have a handful of students here that go on to some sort of higher education in the arts [or] design, or they go to art school,” he says. “I’d like to see more, so that’s why I’m here.”

The intention of his course in design is to teach students how to be savvy visual communicators. The students make logos, magazine covers, pictograms, and personal avatars to make them more fluent in a visual culture.

Students learn to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Art in Matt’s classes is increasingly digital; his work as an illustrator has moved exclusively to his iPad.

“We’re a very image-based culture right now,” he says. “Giving them some tools to be able to interpret what they’re seeing and be sophisticated and savvy in how they respond to it, I think, is important.”

Since his hiring, Matt has found other ways to immerse his students in the art world, beyond simply offering them the skills they need to make art.

Gallery35 occupies the lobby of East Haven High School’s auditorium. With a little money raised for lighting and the help of other school officials, Matt got the gallery started officially last year with two art shows exhibiting both professional and student work.

“When I got hired four years ago, I remember getting a tour of the school and thinking, ‘This would make a great art gallery,’” Matt said.

Though there were only two shows in its first year, Matt says they plan on having even more opportunities for students and professionals to show their work this year with the student art club, State of the Arts, and seniors set to have their own shows later in the year.

The gallery will officially open with “Harmony and Discord,” the work of New Haven painter Steven DiGiovanni, at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 17. The show is open to the public. DiGiovanni’s work will remain in the gallery until Dec. 1.

“[Gallery35 is] a space where professional artists and student artists can exhibit and share the space,” he says. “I think it’s good for the professional artists to share their work with students to kind of inspire them…and it’s good for the students to see where this can all lead.”