Carl Geiger: Shadows, Resin, Community and The Creamery
Tucked into the quiet landscape of Lafayette, New York, an unassuming historic building known locally as “The Creamery” hums with a different kind of production these days. Where milk cans once arrived by horse-drawn wagon, digital scans, resin prints, and decades of creative experimentation now define the space. It is here that artist Carl Geiger has built not just a studio, but an evolving ecosystem of art, technology, and community.
Stepping into Geiger’s workspace feels less like entering a traditional artist’s studio and more like walking into a living archive of ideas. Sculptures line the walls, some carved from wood, others gleaming in subtle, pearlescent finishes. At first glance, they appear almost ghostly: pale figures emerging from light and shadow. But as Geiger explains, that interplay is precisely the point. “All you really have here is shadow,” he says, gesturing toward a white resin bust. “White shows the shadows the best. If everything’s matte and evenly lit, you barely see anything. But introduce light from the side suddenly, the form appears.” This philosophy form revealed through light sits at the heart of his current work. Geiger prints his sculptures in white resin, often leaving them minimally painted or enhanced with a subtle pearl finish. The effect is deliberate: too much color obscures the detail, while the right amount of sheen amplifies it. “The gloss reflects light,” he notes, “and that gives you more dimension.”
Geiger’s artistic process bridges decades of technological evolution. He traces the origins of his current practice back to an early iPhone app called 123D Catch, a now-defunct program that allowed users to take dozens of photos of an object and convert them into a 3D model a process known as photogrammetry. “You’d take 50 or 100 pictures from all angles, send them off, and get back a 3D dataset,” he recalls. “That was the beginning.” Armed with that data, Geiger made his first 3D print at the Fayetteville Free Library one of the first libraries in the world to offer public access to 3D printing. The result fascinated him, but it wasn’t enough. “It was cool,” he says, “but it was ugly plasticky.” That dissatisfaction sparked years of experimentation. He built his own CNC router to carve sculptures from wood, navigating the limitations of three-axis machining, undercuts, and unpredictable grain patterns. Many of the wooden pieces still populate the studio, their organic textures contrasting with the precision of his newer resin works. “Wood is beautiful, but it’s unpredictable,” he explains. “You don’t know what’s inside until you cut it. Sometimes you get flaws you can’t fix.” The transition to resin printing marked a turning point. “The detail was incredible,” he says simply. It allowed him to capture subtle expressions, fine textures, and complex geometries that had previously been out of reach.
Yet Geiger’s story is as much about place as it is about process. The Creamery itself purchased in the late 1970s for just $15,000, has been a lifelong project. Originally a dairy processing hub, the building once served as a collection point for local farmers. Milk, worthless in rural abundance, became valuable only when shipped by rail to cities like New York. The structure still carries traces of that past: industrial bones, remnants of milk tanks, and even a preserved cylindrical tank that Geiger jokingly calls a “guest bedroom.” “I had to keep one piece of the history,” he says. Over the decades, he has renovated, repurposed, and reimagined the space almost entirely by hand, guided by necessity and curiosity rather than formal training. “I learned from books, trial and error, and now YouTube,” he admits with a laugh. But The Creamery has never been just a personal studio. It has long functioned as a gathering place and an informal cultural hub shaped by Geiger’s belief in community.
In the years before COVID-19, Monday nights at The Creamery were a local institution. Friends, artists, musicians, and neighbors would gather weekly for potluck dinners, music, and conversation. Photographs from those evenings line the walls, capturing decades of shared experience. “It was always about bringing people together,” Geiger says. “People would show up with instruments, food, ideas whatever they had.” These gatherings weren’t structured events so much as open invitations. A stranger might arrive with a banjo and a bottle of whiskey, join the circle, and become part of the night. Over time, the gatherings evolved to include themed events belt sander races, open mic nights, and even multimedia installations. One particularly memorable series of events, called “Cyberfunk,” ran for seven years and drew crowds large enough to prompt local legislation. “The town literally made a law because of the party,” Geiger says, half amused. “That was the preamble.” Even now, though less frequent, the spirit of those gatherings persists. Recent events have included dance workshops, drum circles, and community music nights, each rooted in the idea that creativity thrives in shared spaces. Geiger references the concept of “Blue Zones” regions where people live exceptionally long lives as inspiration. “Community, music, movement those are all part of it,” he says. “That’s what we try to create here.”
Geiger’s path to this hybrid practice was anything but linear. A longtime presence at Syracuse University, he co-founded the Synapse Video Center, an early experiment in collaborative media production. The group built one of the first two-way cable systems, envisioning a world where media could be interactive rather than one-directional. “It was basically the internet before the internet,” he says. His academic journey stretched across disciplines art, electronics, media without ever settling into a single category. “Every semester I had a different major,” he recalls. “I just learned what I needed to learn.” Though he never completed his degree, that interdisciplinary mindset defines his work to this day. Sculpture, technology, social practice, they are all part of the same continuum.
Financially, Geiger’s life has been modest. Much of his professional career was spent in human services, adapting computer systems for people with disabilities. It was meaningful work, but not lucrative. “It paid the bills,” he says. “And it gave me time to build this.” That tradeoff security for creative freedom has shaped both his art and his environment. The Creamery stands as a testament to what can be built over time with limited resources but sustained passion. “I have friends who are retired and don’t know what to do,” he reflects. “I’ve never had that problem.”
Back in the studio, Geiger adjusts a sculpture under shifting light, watching as shadows redefine its surface. The piece seems to change with each movement, revealing new contours, new expressions. It’s a fitting metaphor for his work and perhaps his life. Nothing here is static. Everything evolves -- materials, technologies, communities. From early photogrammetry experiments to finely detailed resin prints, from milk processing plant to cultural gathering space, Geiger’s practice resists easy categorization. It exists somewhere between art and engineering, solitude and community, past and future. And at its core is a simple but profound idea: that form, like meaning, emerges through interaction through light, through people, through time. As Geiger puts it, “You don’t really see anything until the light hits it the right way.”