In 2021, the old, red brick building on the corner of Lincoln and Bryan Streets was afforded a new lease on life.
It’s home to a gallery now, and though this collection of artists is not new, it’s the boldest iteration yet of their time together. Last fall, this group formerly known as the Gallery on Chippewa Square packed up, moved closer to the river, and became the Savannah Gallery of Art (SGA). “In the process,” says SGA Financial Architect Cathy Sizer, “we discovered that everyone has skills beyond the techniques we bring to our work.” Their wood turner, Roy Yarger, is a master carpenter who arranged the space, built the walls and did intricate light design. Two SGA artists skilled in graphic arts created the logo, the brochures and all the cards. Others pitched in by working social media channels, training fellow artists in new systems and bringing good, old-fashioned elbow grease. “This has really been an incredible team effort,” Sizer says. “Everything is going exceptionally well!”
Walking inside, a wide variety of media greets visitors.
SGA’s artists work with jewelry, fabrics, oil, acrylics, watercolor, wood and digital images on aluminum. The latter entails “high heat and high pressure applied in an infusion process, but the pixels don’t quite meet up. Therefore, only the aluminum shines through,” Sizer explains. “It creates these fabulous, in-your-face photographs with a high-quality, metallic look. The final result is waterproof and doesn’t need glass, a frame, anything. It’s fascinating.”
And Sizer?
She works in a process called nuno felting. “Nuno is the Japanese word for cloth, and the technique was invented in the early 90s by two women, Japanese and Australian felters. They figured out how to make beautiful, strong, lightweight pieces utilizing the microscopic hooks inherent in materials like merino wool and alpaca fibers. The scarves look fragile but they aren’t — it’s all hand washable!” She also makes
one-of-a-kind, vintage-inspired jewelry.
Talking to SGA’s artists, the sense is that they make each other better at what they do. “I love the idea of seeing through another artist’s filter,” says Sizer as she looks around the well-appointed space. “It’s so interesting trying to understand what each work might have to say to the pieces around it.”
In that spirit, SGA is spotlighting one piece from each of its artists, curated by self-taught watercolorist William Kwamena-Poh.
In December, the new gallery featured his work. “A lovely, lovely man,” Kwamena-Poh came to the United States from Ghana with his family when his father, a Fulbright Scholar, was hired to teach history at Alabama’s Talladega College. That’s when a young Kwamena-Poh first saw the work of James Huff, who was also teaching there at the time. “Here were these huge, intricately detailed portraits of African American women that just blew me away,” he says. “I was lit on fire.”
Looking for inspiration, yourself? Find it at the Savannah Gallery of Art!
The Savannah Gallery of Art
304 E. Bryan Street
Savannah, GA
(912) 358-0287
www.savannahgalleryofart.com
by Dani Ray