Son joining the 'family business' to do his first solo art show in downtown Staunton
Laura Peters, Staunton News Leader 9/2/2021
STAUNTON — Martin Geiger sits on the front porch of his downtown Staunton home. He's got gray socks on pulled halfway up his legs and his shoes are so splattered with oil paints that it looks like confetti.
It's a hot August day and he enters the home, which is dark — there's barely any lights on, probably to keep it cooler. There's no air conditioning.
His paintings are all lined up in the front room, which allows for the natural light to pour in from large windows. When you walk into the room, you're surrounded by images of Staunton. What is lined up is a good portion of what will be showcased at the Staunton Augusta Art Center come Sept. 17 called "Narrating the Observed."
It's his first solo show and he's following in the footsteps of his father, Phil, who will be showing his own art at the Beverley Street Studio School Sept. 24.
Art wasn't necessarily something Martin thought he'd pursue, it just sort of happened.
Phil has been an artist for most of his life. He also taught painting and drawing at the University of Virginia for more than 30 years. The Geiger house was filled with paints, easels and artwork. Not only is Martin's father an artist, but his mother is too. Liz Geiger is a painter who teaches on and off at the Beverley Street Studio School. Her work will be featured alongside her husband's on the faculty wall of the studio.
"It's a month of Geiger," Liz joked. "My son tells people 'I'm joining the family business,'"
Martin is still in the process of setting up for the show. That means framing all his pieces by hand and figuring out which artwork will be shown. His chosen medium — oil — because it comes off more professional. It also comes with challenges because it dries quickly so you have to be quick about your strokes.
For now, he's still perfecting his craft.
"I got into painting a little late, maybe when I was 17," he said. Since his parents were painters, he saw it was possible to make it a career.
"Most people don't think of painting as a job and it doesn't occur to them to even be interested in doing something like that," he said. "My parents have always sort of done it."
At 16, he started drawing and that's when it clicked. He could do this.
"It just sort of grew from there, sort of organically," he said, now at age 24. "It sort of felt like it was what I was built to do more than any other thing that I've been doing."
He graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy in Fine Arts in 2019.
He does art a little differently, too.
"A lot of what I do is I sort of go out and find what strikes me as interesting," he said. "I don't think about the sort of subjects a lot of people would think about it."
He said that many people may look at an iconic building in downtown Staunton and think about the history of it or know someone who lives there. For Martin, it's more of a feeling.
"It's sort of like what it feels like to be there," he said.
For example, the Masonic Building downtown has rows of windows.
"They're almost like big, dark eyes," he said. "There's something that appealed to me like it's strangely formal."
Watching Martin grow as an artist has been fun to watch for his father.
"He's just coming together so well," Phil said.
According to Phil, raising his children, there were always artists coming and going in the house. Both he and his wife didn't even know their children would become artists. They thought their children would go off to college, get a degree and an everyday job just like everyone else.
"We feel really lucky that we can do something that we really like doing it and are excited about doing," Phil said.
For more information about the exhibits visit bssschool.org and saartcenter.org.
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