Austin Martin photography When: Opening, 5 p.m. Monday; exhibit through May 2 Where: Mia’s Pizza and Eats, 911 Market Place Blvd., Suite L, Cumming. How much: Free; photographs available for purchase More info: 770-887-8874, miaspizzaandeats@hotmail.com
They’ve got pies and a feast for your eyes at this pizza place. A restaurant and an art gallery rolled into one, Mia’s Pizza and Eats, located on Market Place Boulevard in Cumming, will open its third art show on Monday. Photography by Berry College student Austin Martin will be featured in the restaurant’s rotating gallery. The show will open at 5 p.m. Monday, and run through May 2. Clori Rose, co-owner of Mia’s with her husband, said they added the gallery to support the arts. "I just am an advocate for the arts," said Rose, who is an English teacher at North Forsyth High School. "I am also a teacher, and I just like to support artists. We have art all over the restaurant, and we have a huge long wall in the back that we thought would be a great place for artists to display their work." Martin, a graduate of North Forsyth, is Rose’s former student. He became interested in photography during his senior year of high school, taking almost 6,000 photos to document the year. Rose said she contacted Martin after seeing his photography on Facebook. "He is now in college, and I had just noticed on Facebook that he was posting an awful lot of photography that I thought was very good," she said. The exhibit will be the first for Martin, whose pieces focus on nature, people and fashion. "I just think he has a great eye, composition wise. He is quite creative," she said. "He has a lot of pieces with people as subjects, and I just think they’re interesting. He also incorporates nature in a way that I like. He tends to capture the local color of our community in an interesting way."