Geoff Britton

Bucket Talk

This week, Eric and Jeremy are back with Geoff Britton, an artist, farrier and Marine veteran from Nebraska. After enlisting in 2013, he shipped out in 2014, where he served as a small-craft mechanic. When his time in the military began to come to a close, he decided to get onto social media to promote his art. He started by painting empty liquor bottles he found around the barracks and it all went off from there. Now he works on his art and as a farrier to make a living. Listen in as he chats with our hosts about his decision to stay, and then leave, the military, his decision to get into the art world, van life and more.

From an early age, Geoff knew he wanted to join the Marines. Once he made up his mind, that was the target he had his eyes on and it came to fruition in 2013, when he signed the dotted line. He served as a small-craft mechanic, working on outboard boat engines for most of his career. Though he was in the military and didn’t have an exact plan for the future, he knew he always wanted to incorporate art and social media into his life.

“So [art] was always something I kind of worked on on the side and just tried to grow and, you know, TikTok hadn't been around yet. So I was like, in the event, I do get out [of the military], maybe this could be something. Maybe, maybe not, I'm not sure. But it's fun.”

Once he decided to leave the Marines, he wanted to get into the freelance or art world in some capacity. After moving to Coronado for his final spell in the military, he decided that he’d like to live his life on the move. He lived #vanlife for a while, posting videos about that since he was not really able to share about military life on his social media channels anymore.

“I was like, let's just get a van. We do this all the time. When I ended up moving to Coronado, I was like, I can just do this full time, save my money. And I kind of started making videos about that, because I knew with the content I was creating, a lot of it was military based.”

After his time in the van had ended, he went back to Nebraska for a spell, but ended up back in California attending farrier school. Though he didn’t have any real equine experience, the career made sense to him and school was paid for by the GI Bill, so he went for it.

“I found there's a, there's a farrier school where you can learn how to shoe horses, and it's covered by the GI Bill…And I was like, Well, you know, that sounds like a decent paycheck…that sounds pretty cool. I can do that.”

Today, he’s got his hands full with his freelance art and photography work and job as a farrier, but he’s able to do it on the go. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but now that he’s out of the military and on his own, he’s able to find his own rhythm.