Wayne Geary » About the Artist

         I was born in Ogden, Utah.  My mother was a homemaker; my father was an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force.  By the time I was five, we moved to different places, as my father was stationed in a number of assignments, mostly in the Eastern US.  During this time, I experienced bouts of homesickness; frequently my family seemed to be perpetually on the move.  For instance, when I was in the third grade, I attended three different schools in three states.  At the same time, this rather nomadic existence made me more self-reliant, and it gave me a much broader perspective than I would have had if I had grown up only in Utah.

         A crucial event happened when my father was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany.  We essentially had no television there; I had to find ways to entertain myself.  At this point I became a voracious reader; I took some art classes that had a strong influence on me; and above all, I was exposed to "real" art.  On weekends I took trains to nearby cathedrals and medieval cities and castles.  Above all, quite by chance, I wandered into the Wiesbaden museum on a rainy November afternoon.  There was an exhibit of the mystical landscapes of the great German Romantic painter, Caspar David Friedrich.  This was a revelation, even an epiphany for me.  For the first time I experienced the power of truly great art, and this event has inspired me ever since.  Later, while in Europe, I discovered modern art, from Van Gogh to the Abstract Expressionists, and this was equally exciting.

        High school, in a small town in Ohio, was mostly uneventful and uninspiring.  But college was a crucial time for me: eventually I changed my major from studio art to art history, and I received my BA degree from the University of Washington.  A few years later I went to graduate school at the University of Utah, where I earned an MFA in drawing and painting.

         Eventually I migrated to New Mexico, first in Santa Fe, and later, as an artist-in-residence in Chama Valley, in the far north of that state.  There I painted a number of murals with school children; and there I met Louise Fischman, an accomplished artist who a few years later, became my wife.  Later, Louise and I became the parents of two daughters, Maya and Greta.

         Louise and I have lived in Salt Lake City for a number of years.  I am currently working as a part time art specialist in an elementary school in Salt Lake.  I enjoy working with young children, and my hours allow me to spend a good deal of time in my studio painting.