'Everyone is welcome': Savannah State University's Art Club offers openness, acceptance
“It’s not like a traditional club where it’s a certain thing you have to do or it’s a certain way you have to do it,” said Kortez Taylor, vice president of Savannah State University’s Art Club. “No. It’s a group of friends who all enjoy art, love art, love each other, and hang out.”
The affable Taylor was one of about a dozen SSU students who met with me recently at the Kennedy Fine Arts Building on the HBCU’s campus. Our goal was to discuss all things art, and that we did, but for many of the young people gathered together that day, Art Club is about so much more than just painting and sculpture.
“Art Club is just a place I can come to so I don’t feel entirely alone anymore,” noted Ellen Hunter, a journalism student with a passion for drawing. She joined the group after a difficult pandemic-dominated freshman year, a year where she “basically [had] a mental breakdown.”
“And having other people say your art is really good, we love you, and we’d love to have you,” meant everything, she continued, her voice catching, tears in her eyes. “Being in Art Club gave me a reason to be here, every Thursday and Friday, just getting through a week, seeing people who care about me.”
Belkys “Bell” Allred, a native Venezuelan who came to the United States five years ago to live with her father, found a similar connection with her fellow creatives.
“Coming here to Art Club definitely helped me find more like-minded people, people who like the same type of music, the same type of art,” Allred noted. “We watch shows together.”
“Kortez was saying to me the other day, we’re like a puzzle, all different pieces that fit together,” she added.
In all, the tight-knit group comprises just over 20 members, and on the day I visited, two more members came aboard. Even as an outsider (and a much older outsider at that) I felt what many of these young people expressed to me during our chat: Everyone is welcome.
“If you’ve got something to work on, you have a piece that you’re doing, have a project, you can work on that,” related Taylor. “If you want to come just to not lay in the bed all day, you can do that. There’s no pressure for anything.”
“Everybody is so close, it doesn’t feel like you’re getting dragged to anything, because you want to be here,” he continued. “It’s like a family.”
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What is Art?
What is defined as art has changed dynamically over the years, especially since the 19th century. With the growth of digital art and Artificial Intelligence (more on that contentious subject later), the rate of change has only increased, and it can be difficult to pinpoint what the younger generations even think of as being relatable creative expression.
So I asked them, “What is art?”
“The generic definition I heard all the time growing up is that art is an expression, bringing your ideas out,” Taylor said. “But I feel like art can be a way to cope. Art can be a way to find hope, or get comfortable when you’re not outgoing. You can connect through art like that.
“Art’s more of a community than just an expression,” he went on to say. “It’s kinda deeper than just an expression.”
“For me art was a gateway drug,” noted multidisciplinary artist and ART Club Treasurer Kayla Windhom. “I didn’t want to go to college, but my mom was like, ‘Try it for a year.’ I didn’t even know what I would get a degree in. Here I am two years later.”
Club Social Media Coordinator and digital character artist Maya “Star” Beckett described art as “a positive way to get my emotions out, instead of a destructive way,” as well as career path.
“For me, art went from a hobby, to an outlet for my emotions, to the only thing that I see myself doing for the rest of my life,” she stated. “It just became so important to me.”
Lakeisha Walker, also a character designer and the organization’s President, had a simple answer.
“When you’re mad or sad you can just ‘art,’” she said.
“A.I. steals from other artists”
A groan echoed through the painting studio where we’d met when I asked the gathered students what they thought about A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) art.
“I can’t stand A.I. art: It’s awful,” Beckett opined. “And the worst part about it is non-artists are the ones advocating for it. ‘Yeah, you should do A.I.,’ and, ‘Why would I depend on a real person when I can depend on this robot that’s spitting out garbage?’
“A.I. steals from other artists.”
“A.I. art is like someone taking someone else’s picture and using it for your profile picture,” Taylor said.
“A.I. can’t capture the human experience,” Windhom added. “A.I. can’t really capture what’s going on with the human mind…because everyone’s different. A.I. can only show a shell of what it is. It can only guess of what the human experience is.”
“I do not support AI art in the slightest…but there are a lot of A.I. tools being used,” Hunter said. “If they’re being used like tools, and not to create the whole entire image, then that’s fine, and A.I. has some [useful tools] that you can use.”
“But like Star said,” she continued, “a lot of A.I. art is based off a library of stolen art that was created by humans.”
“When you can take someone’s voice and make your own song out of that, that’s when A.I. becomes a real big problem,” Taylor, a musician and comedian, continued. “I’ve seen people take President Biden’s voice and make him say whatever they want to. That’s extremely dangerous. That’s when it’s becoming too much.”
Art Off Campus
One of the things that first drew my attention to SSU’s Art Club was their Instagram account @artclub.ssu. I follow a lot of artists and art organizations on social media, but what stood out about their profile was how much fun they seemed to be having in each and every picture. In no case was this more evident that in the shots of them attending art openings at places like Sulfur Studios and Cedar House Gallery.
“This is the first time I’m really seeing artists doing art in real life; Black artists doing real art in real life,” said Beckett. “I’ve never seen that before.
“It was so fun for me,” she continued. “This is also my first time realizing how much an art city that Savannah is.”
Many of her fellow group members had similar experiences.
“There’s so much art everywhere,” noted Allred, something she says just isn’t the case in her native Venezuela. “There [are] so many art galleries downtown. There’s graffiti on the walls downtown. People put their stickers everywhere. And you see people [based] on what they wear, you can just tell that they make art.”
“The community here is really expressive,” Walker added. “When I went to my first First Fridays…it really opened my perspective on the uniqueness of different artists and what kinds of mediums they use. I just enjoy going there and meeting them and seeing their thought processes behind their different pieces.”
The group also experienced what I’ve experienced in my years of covering the Savannah art scene: It’s openness and acceptance, it’s lack of judgment, and it’s desire to have each and every artist be a part of the community.
“It’s magnetic,” Taylor said as several of his fellow members nodded in agreement. “It makes you want to be around it.”
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah State University's art club broadens definition of art
