Carl Sublett was born in Johnson County, Kentucky Feb. 4, 1919, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Tandy Taylor and Beaula Fitzpatrick Sublett. In 1923 the family moved from the small farm to the mining town of Lackey where the coal trains fascinated young Carl and became the first subjects of his drawings. He attended Western Kentucky State College from 1938-40 in Bowling Green, KY.

In 1941 at the onset of WWII Sublett decided to go into defense work, enrolled into a course at Mayo Vocational School in Paintsville, KY and became a machine operator. He went to Hartford, Connecticut for a job at Pratt & Whitney Co. as a lathe operator. While there he met Helen Davis, also an employee at the plant who is from Port Clyde, Maine. They were married in 1942.

Carl was called to serve in the military and joined the U.S. Army. He served in the infantry as a sergeant in the 85th Division of the 5th Army in Italy. During the war some of his camp sketches were printed in the division newspaper and some made their way home in V-mail. After hostilities ceased, Sublett entered the University Study Center in Florence, Italy and received the Citizens Award for his artwork by the people of Florence.

He returned to the States to live in Bristol, Tennessee and worked as an engineering draftsman, as a newspaper artist, as artist and as an assistant manager of an engraving firm and as a freelance artist continuing his own painting at all hours. While involved in these pursuits, in 1948, and then in 1951, first a daughter, and then a son were born.

In 1954 he moved his small family to Knoxville, TN to take a position as Art Director for Charles S. Kane Co., advertisers. He enrolled in evening painting classes at the University of Tennessee with C. Kermit Ewing and soon he was hired to