Lancaster County artist Jeff Geib exhibits “Weaver Suite,” a collection of drypoint etching self-portraits and portraits of four subjects, in Hess Gallery from now until late March.
This suite of prints came out of a suggestion by John Weaver, who works in a co-op studio in Salunga with Geib. He recommended that his father, Isaac Weaver, commission Geib to produce a set of portraits of Geib, John Weaver, Tom Cook, a mutual friend and patron, and Mike Witmer, who also works at their studio. They conceived that the set would consist of eight portraits, one drypoint etching and one silverpoint drawing of each of them. John Weaver and Witmer sat for Geib in his kitchen, but the source drawings for Cook came from a trip that Geib and Cook had taken, on which the latter was trying not to throw up and Geib sketched a drawing of his condition.
After Geib began his work, it became clear to him that the series was taking on a life of its own. He was convinced that the entire sequence of prints should be seen as a single portrait, asking his commissioners if they would buy whatever he created. Both Weavers signed on for the revised project without seeing the prints or knowing how many there would be. “Nobody does that,” Geib said. The expanded plan now consisted of four sets of prints, each of an undetermined number.
During the process of creating the collection, Geib found more aspects that made him excited about the series. Every print involved more marks, gestural and in the portraits themselves, and changes of plate tone. Several of the prints were reprinted and run through the press up to seven times. “You should know this about yourself as an artist and all other artists: there are always 60 things you do in your process,” Geib said. The last print in the series was actually an accident. He had used a small piece of paper to create a window on an earlier print, and later he found the paper on the floor and noticed that it had a contact print from the press. He subsequently added it to the series.
The evolution from piece to piece is evident in the way the exhibit presents them. “All 58 prints, as well as the etching plates and copies of source drawings and production notes had resided together ever since in a case at Ike Weaver’s house, so I am very pleased that Elizabethtown College is giving me my first and only opportunity to publicly display the suite,” Geib said in his artist statement. “My hope is that being able to see the entire portrait sequence in order makes visually available the process of shaping/puzzling/playing that is the point of my characteristic sort of serial investigation, and that the close proximity of the prints to each other brings into focus the smaller variant details in which our richest graphic experience can be found.”
Geib has had great experiences showing at Etown before in group shows, and this exhibit is no exception. “The ability to hang [all of the prints] continuously is just a super thrill for me,” Geib said. “This is not something I anticipated being able to do.” He expressed that everyone he has dealt with have been very nice peoplewith whom it was a joy to work. Senior Zach Link, a studio art and Japanese double-major, has had an equally fond experience with Geib’s help during his and Professor of Art Milt Friedly’s installation of the suite in the gallery. Link and Geib share not only an interest in art but a curiosity about comics and Japanese culture.
Geib was born in Manheim and remains a resident of Lancaster County. He was an art major at Millersville University and graduated in 1988. In his time at the school, Geib studied under Robert Nelson, a highly respected contemporary painter, sculptor, printmaker and collage artist. Despite Nelson’s skill in etching, he refused to teach it at that time because he was frustrated that no one did traditional etching. “We had to sneak into the printmaking studios at night to learn to etch by flashlight,” Geib said.
Link became involved in the exhibit after he had seen Nelson’s work. “His work daunted me, really changed my perspective of how to approach drawing,” Link said. “So when Professor Friedly told me Jeff Geib was coming to Etown and he was a student of Nelson, I was elated.”
Geib previously taught at Pennsylvania College of Art and Design but now freelance teaches. Most of his students are in high school and are looking for more observational drawings for portfolios. They come into his studio and work along with him informally. Geib called himself a deliberate draftsman. He can work for 40 to 50 hours total on one drawing, so he has his students only put forth a fraction of that time on their work. Geib works from observation, not using photographs for reference except maybe once a year. “I am not an absolutist,” he said “but I know that nothing I do from a photograph is ever going to be as good as eyeballing.”
His studio in Salunga is an old wooden church that was built in 1889. All of the artists play music (Geib plays the banjo) and he remarked how lovely it is to hear the music in that structure.
Geib does not do traditional etching but rather uses super thin metal plates, which are quite a bit cheaper, and a variety of really sharp pointy sticks, including one type of stick with sandpaper on the tip. Each of the pieces in the “Weaver Suite” was done with water-soluble inks on various etching papers, printed on a Half-Wood Mini etching press that was hand built for John Weaver and Geib. “The press looks like the American Girl printmaking press, like Felicity used it,” Geib joked at the artist’s reception.
“Weaver Suite” runs from Friday, Jan. 25 through Thursday, March 28 in Hess Gallery, Zug Hall. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free.