Greenville Open Studios offers an opportunity to explore artists’ studios.
In a time with myriad ways of experiencing and purchasing art digitally, Greenville Open Studios is different. During one fall weekend, artists invite entry into their workspaces. Visitors can see art in person and hear about the artists’ creative inspiration and processes.
“It’s not really about the finished piece . . . . It’s all the other things it takes to get there,” says Jay Owens, a regular participant in the annual event organized by the Metropolitan Arts Council.
In its 21 years, Open Studios has grown from a group of artists’ novel idea to raise awareness of Greenville’s creative community to an arts celebration that draws thousands of people. It’s likely patrons will generously open their wallets: for the first time in 2022, artwork sales surpassed $500,000.
“When you think about these studios being open just 14 hours in one weekend, and (more than) $500,000 worth of art being sold, that’s pretty remarkable,” MAC’s Executive Director Alan Ethridge says.
This year’s Open Studios list includes 145 established and emerging artists working within a 15-mile radius of downtown Greenville. Five are first-time participants whose talent earned them recognition as Dwain Skinner Open Studios Fellows. The fellowship honors Skinner, a designer and sculptor who passed away unexpectedly in 2019.
Noteworthy Greenville Open Studios Stops
Emerging Explorer
Interdisciplinary artist Griffin Cordel uses his studio to simultaneously create custom clothing, screen printings, paintings, and sculptures. “I just want to show people what I’m doing because . . . I love the process of making things,” says the 2022 Winthrop University graduate and 2023 Dwain Skinner Fellow.
Using an ever-evolving process, Cordell crafts pieces to learn more about his surroundings and explore his dreams and memories. His sketchbook’s poems and drawings serve as the inspiration for his intentionally ambiguous yet celebratory and brightly colored imagery. “I’m always trying to create these contrasts that represent very broad ideas of binaries: life and death, happiness and sadness,” he says.
Home studio, 4 Applejack Lane, Taylors, griffincordellartwork.com
Experienced Expressionist
Painter, ceramist, poet, and art teacher Shay Black—a 2022 Dwain Skinner Fellow—will welcome back visitors to her Greer studio. She is returning to Open Studios because “I love art, (and) it’s a great way to be able to meet new people. You can’t sell art without people,” she says.
A 30-year US Army veteran and hair salon owner, Black first discovered her inner artist during an art-focused hairstyle course and later earned a BFA in ceramics and sculpting from Converse College. She now creates nature-inspired ceramics, along with vibrant mixed-media paintings of African-American women. Each one expresses identity and “an emotional connection of how Black women move through the world,” she says.
Studio No. 6, City of Greer Center for the Arts, 804 Trade St., Greer, iamshayblack.com
Prize-Winning Portrait Painter
After years of working from home, having a Greenville Center for the Arts studio is “definitely a good mindset for me,” said Christine Swann, who moved from the Pittsburgh area to Greenville last year.
The graphic designer and illustrator turned self-taught pastelist and oil painter has received numerous accolades and international exhibition invitations during her 30-year career. But she doesn’t think about those when she’s creating new, light-filled portraits. Constantly inspired by people, she instead focuses on telling stories of human brokenness and healing, overcoming boundaries, finding the light in life, and more. “They say ‘Do the work, and everything else will follow.’ And it’s really true,” the 2023 Dwain Skinner Fellow says.
Studio No. 8, GCCA’s second floor, 101 Abney St., swannportraits.com
Seasoned Ceramics Storyteller
A participant since 2008, Jay Owens says Open Studios is the “only way for people to see the story” of how he creates his whimsical and colorful ceramic sculptures that over time have become more large-scale, narrative, and experimental. He balances those with functional pottery and the drawings and paintings he does to work out ideas.
Those ideas often take shape as he drives to work from his Travelers Rest home studio and sees interesting snippets of everyday life. He turns those observations into pieces “to speak to the energy of the world around me, to blend realism and surrealism of things that we see that to me have an underlying life force,” he says.
Built by Jay, 12 Windtree Court, Travelers Rest, jayowensart.blogspot.com
Touring Tips
If deciding where to go proves difficult, Etheridge suggests tuning into the Open Studios YouTube channel. Its short, artist-made videos, sorted by medium, give glimpses of what visitors will see. Maps in both the Open Studios catalog and the app can help with planning routes, and yellow directional signs will mark studio locations.
12 x 12 Exhibit
The 12 x 12 Exhibit features a sampling of participants’ artwork created in a required 12-by-12-inch format. “It’s really unique to see what artists come up with that type of parameter,” Etheridge says. It opens Nov. 4 with a 6–8 pm reception at MAC’s gallery, 16 Augusta St.
Greenville Open Studios 2023, Nov. 11, 10am–6 pm and Nov. 12, noon–6pm. Sneak preview day, Friday, Nov. 10, 6 –8 pm. (select artists only), greenvilleopenstudios.com
