New arrivals to Savannah from around the country are affecting th art marketplace and will continue to do so for years to come
He is called Kokopelli, and long ago, he was worshipped for his virility.
But then Kokopelli caught on in mainstream American culture – his swaying image adorns T-shirts, tattoos and the many baubles of hipster cool – and has more broadly come to represent rejuvenation and man’s need to grow.
When Rory McKinzie was looking for an image to represent his new Broughton Street nightclub, Kokopelli was just the icon he wanted.
But Kokopelli may serve as another symbol in the Savannah region.
When applied to an economic trend, Kokopelli could be a metaphor for the changes likely to take place in Southeast Georgia over the next few decades.
Indeed, the 5,000-year-old deity may end up symbolizing the future, reflecting the shifts in the arts and culture marketplace and the subsequent business growth that may transpire thanks to entrepreneurs like McKinzie.
McKinzie is part of a wave of in-state immigration that is changing and will continue to change the cultural landscape of Savannah, the Georgia coast and the Lowcountry.
Call them transplants. Call them Yankees.
Whatever you call them, they are definitely not from around here.
Some are young; some are old. In any case, they are bringing with them experiences, perspectives and expectations that are going to have a tremendous impact on the laws of cultural supply and demand.
THE INVASION OF THE TRANSPLANTS
By 2030, nearly 1 million people will reside in the state’s six coastal and four inland counties, according to a report by Georgia Tech’s Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development.
Many of those immigrants will be students drawn to Georgia Southern University and the Savannah College of Art and Design. Others will be military personnel stationed at Fort Stewart, Hunter Army Airfield and the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay near St. Marys.
Most, however, will be baby boomers hunting for an ideal place to spend their golden years. In most cases, these people are seeking warm places with low taxes and affordable health care, according to a report by Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute.
But they also want this: for these new locales to have a wealth of culture.
“These are affluent people who want more culture,” said Jeremy Hill, assistant director of the Bureau of Business Resources and Economic Development, who played a part in the Georgia Tech study. “Savannah is perfect. It has SCAD, art galleries, restaurants and performing arts.
“They won’t come unless there’s culture.”
‘CHANGE IS INEVITABLE’
Raised in poverty on Chicago’s South Side, McKinzie spent decades working in Atlanta in broadcasting, eventually grew successful and entered the upper-middle class.
He got accustomed to the pleasures of music, good food and the complexity of vintage liquors – the finer things of life that wisdom, middle age and affluence affords.
McKinzie and his wife, Terrie, moved to Savannah for the weather, the history, the overall pace of life. When they arrived, though, they immediately recognized a hole in the cultural marketplace.
Downtown had plenty of things to do for soldiers and college kids – dance clubs, half-priced drinks and all kinds of rock ‘n’ roll.
But there was no nightlife venue for baby boomers like him to enjoy good meal, sip an expensive cocktail or hear good, live music, particularly modern jazz.
McKinzie is an entrepreneur. He once owned his own broadcast company. So he saw an opportunity to open a restaurant and nightclub. He opened Kokopelli’s this fall.
For him, a personal journey coincided with supply meeting demand.
“Life is about growth,” McKinzie said. “We can embrace it or not.
“Change is inevitable.”
MAKING ART HAPPEN
McKinzie is only one of numerous transplants turning the sparsely painted canvas of Savannah into a multi colored, multi dimensional and multi cultural tableau.
For instance, a majority of the arts organizations getting a portion of the more than $979,000 in funding from Savannah City Council in 2007 are headed by transplants.
To name just three: The Savannah Music Festival? Rob Gibson, originally from Atlanta.
The Savannah Shakespeare Festival? Joshua Stafford, who hails from Cincinnati.
The Friends of Johnny Mercer? Jeremy Davis calls Louisiana home.
The list goes on.
The Savannah Actor’s Theatre, Savannah Children’s Choir, the Children’s Ballet Theatre, Savannah Sinfonietta, the Lucas Theatre for the Arts and the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs all have founders or directors from someplace else and all are making art and culture happen in Savannah.
Not that natives aren’t. To be sure, groups such as the Black Heritage Festival, Coastal Jazz Association and Savannah Folk Music Society are doing just that.
But evidence, documented and anecdotal, suggests that transplants are becoming a growing force in Savannah’s cultural marketplace now and in the years ahead.
One need only look at the Telfair Museum of Art to see how.
BUILDING CULTURE, LITERALLY
In March, the museum opened the $24.5 million Jepson Center for the Arts.
Mayor Otis Johnson said at the opening ceremony that the center’s namesake, Robert S. Jepson, had “a vision of the past, present and future” of Savannah.
Over the past year, Jepson has put his money where his vision is: He has given or pledged $13 million to an endowment whose interest will be used to pay yearly expenses.
Where did Jepson come from?
Not Savannah.
He grew up in Richmond, Va.
As the Telfair expanded, so has its membership, to almost 4,000, nearly three times its total in its 120-plus-year history, a surge fueled in part by transplants.
“Bottom line, I’m glad I’m a member,” said Nick Farley, who has lived with wife, Penny, in New Hampshire, Arizona, Pennsylvania New York City, among other places, before moving to Skidaway Island.
“My thinking is unchanged,” he said. “The Jepson is a must.”
Transplants are attracted to cultural centers, but they are also building them where they do not exist.
As they build culture, they attract more people, who in turn, create more culture.
The Skidaway Community Institute, for instance, is a non-profit organization founded on the absence of a gathering place in which residents of the island can attend college courses and experience culture – art exhibits, music concerts and dance.
The group, which includes baby boomers who, like Farley, relocated to the Landings, decided to build that missing gathering place. It announced last month it plans to build a 15,000-square-foot cultural center with a 300-seat concert hall on the island. The budget is $3.5 million and the opening is expected to be some time in 2009.
The institute’s president, Mary Vernick. Where is she from?
Long Island, N.Y.
TASTE-MAKERS, TASTE-MONGERS
The more that transplants enter the marketplace, the more the marketplace changes to accommodate them.
Case in point: recent changes in Savannah’s art gallery scene.
Downtown galleries have historically concentrated on seascapes, portraiture, still lifes and prints. Few have catered to buyers of high-end, high-quality contemporary art.
That is changing, though, as demand has changed.
Transplants accustomed to buying abstract art have driven the need for the Whitney on Whitaker Street, the Rosewood on Oglethorpe Avenue and the 2 Car Garage on Broughton Street.
None of these existed three years ago, a sign of the developing sophistication of the local marketplace.
“A majority of my clients who want to spend a large amount of money on art are originally from somewhere else,” said June Stratton, owner of the Whitney. “Many of them might have a second home here.”
Upscale tourism also substantially affects her bottom line, said Stratton, who grew up in California’s Bay Area. At Rosewood Contemporary Art, though, sales from tourists are minor compared to sales from locals, said director Dolores Owens.
The difference, though, is that these locals haven’t been local for very long.
“A majority of sales are from clients who moved here,” Owens said. “I think they bring with them an idea of what they are looking for, and they bring with them an idea of the kind of thing they shopped for from where they are from.”
Not all contemporary-art-loving locals are transplants, of course.
At the 2 Car Garage, the only shop of its kind on downtown’s Broughton Street, most of Michael Woody’s clients have lived in Savannah for generations, he said.
On the one hand, Woody said, finding native Savannahians with a yen to buy contemporary art is hardly surprising. The milieu is about 30 years old, after all. On the other, it’s likely SCAD’s presence and cutting-edge sensibility has had an influence.
In any event, demand for new art likely will continue to grow as baby boomers and other transplants continue moving to the region.
As they move in, they may, like McKinzie, establish even more venues for the arts and culture to flourish.
And as they flourish, arts and culture will, in turn, entice even more transplants, particularly boomers like McKinzie, who will want to call the Coastal Empire home.
As for Woody, whether contemporary art can thrive in Savannah seems unclear. What’s certain is the person supplying the art is definitely not from around here.
“I grew up in the Gibraltar of the Confederacy,” Woody said.
That is, not Savannah.
“I was raised in Vicksburg, Mississippi.”
Savannah Morning News
December 24, 2006
