The SMC Partners Present the
Stuff-A-Trolley Toy Drive
Benefiting Blessings in a Book Bag

This holiday season, the SMC Partners are hosting a toy drive to benefit Blessings in a Book Bag. From Nov 20–Dec 12, we will be accepting new, unwrapped toy donations at the following locations:

• Broughton Common @ 118 E Broughton St
• Chamber of Commerce @ 101 E Bay St
• Hustle & Blow Dry Bar @ 5521 Abercorn St, Suite 300
• Johnnie Ganem’s @ 501 Habersham St
• Old Town Trolley Car Barn @ 234 MLK Jr Blvd
• Picker Joe’s Antique Mall @ 217 E 41st St
• Profile by Sanford @ 8108 Abercorn St, Suite 320 (in Abercorn Commons)

The Stuff-A-Trolley Toy Drive is sponsored by the SMC Partners:

• Creative Approach
• Allstate Agent David Pence
• Bay Street Realty Agent Courtney Ganem
• Broughton Common
• Hustle & Blow Dry Bar
• Old Town Trolley Tours of Savannah
• Picker Joe’s Antique Mall
• Profile by Sanford
• Savannah Termite and Pest Control

Thank you for your generous support of Blessings in a Book Bag. Happy holidays!

DATE: Thursday, December 12
TIME: 5:30-7:30 p.m.
LOCATION: The Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa, 1 Resort Drive, Hutchinson Island
COST: $15 Chamber members | $25 member guests
CONTACT: Brooke Phillips, small business & events manager
EMAIL: BPhillips@SavannahChamber.com
PHONE: 912-644-6459

9th Annual Holiday Oyster Roast
You’re invited to join the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce at its 9th Annual Holiday Oyster Roast Business Connection! We’ll be roasting bushels of fresh, local oysters Thursday, December 12 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on the picturesque Harbor Lawn at the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa. In additional to Savannah’s celebrated coastal cuisine, this favorite annual event will feature music, beverages and relationship-building with the Savannah area’s business professionals.

The Chamber knows that people like to do business with people they know. That’s why we offer six networking events scheduled for morning, lunchtime and after hours, at different locations around the Savannah area. These events are intended to provide the most opportunity for members to build relationships with their fellow members during a time of day that is convenient for them. Join us for Coffee Chats and Speed Networking in the mornings, the Power Hour and Courses & Conversation over lunch, and Business Connections and Business on the Move after business hours.

OUT Georgia, First City Pride Center, and Creative Approach are hosting Savannah’s LGBTQ+ and allied business leaders on December 12!

On Thursday, December 12, OUT Georgia Business Alliance, in partnership with First City Pride Center and Creative Approach, will be hosting a networking event for Savannah’s LGBTQ+ and allied business leaders!

OUT Georgia Business Alliance (formerly the Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce) is the LGBTQ+ and allied chamber of commerce for the state of Georgia. OUT Georgia is an affiliate of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) and the local certifying arm of NGLCC’s LGBT-owned Business Enterprise (LGBTBE) designation.

Chris Lugo, Executive Director of OUT Georgia, will be in attendance to share more about OUT Georgia’s strategy to serve the state, while Cale Hall (owner of Creative Approach) will speak how the LGBTBE certification has helped his business and how it can help yours.
We’re also honored to feature Dusty Church and the First City Pride Center, which is the recently announced consolidation of First City Network, Savannah Pride, Jeffrey’s Place, and the Savannah LGBT Center.

The goal is to provide a welcoming evening of networking and information sharing about OUT Georgia, LGBTBE certification, First City Pride Center, and how we can collectively serve and lift up Savannah’s growing LGBTQ+ and allied business community!

Join Buy Local Savannah on Thursday, December 12, 2019, at 7:00 PM at our Business of Year: Ghost Coast Distillery!

Make your plans now!  Prepay and register online!  Members $25 and Non-members $40!  Everyone is welcome!

More details to come!  You do not want to miss the best holiday party in 2019!

Sweet Spice Restaurant will be on site with authentic Caribbean cuisine and Ghost Coast is giving back a portion from EVERY drink sold to Savannah Riverkeeper and their mission. Enjoy Ghost Coast’s Gold Rum and award-winning Tiki-Spiced Rum, specialty cocktails, and of course, reggae!

About Savannah Riverkeeper
Savannah Riverkeeper, established in 2001, works to restore the quality of the Savannah River, protect the people and ecosystems that rely on it, and educate the public about their right to clean water.

On Saturday, December 14th, we will STEP-UP & STEP-IN© for youth, run against bullies and make sure everyone joins in the “Reindeer Games” at the Savannah International Trade & Convention Center on Hutchinson Island. Participants will enjoy an 8K, a kiddie race, and lots of after-race games and activities perfect for all ages. We will also host a Best Cookie contest among top pastry chefs in the area. One of Savannah’s best family-oriented run events, the Reindeer Run benefits the important work of the Rape Crisis Center of the Coastal Empire. Proceeds will support the Prevention Education program at the Rape Crisis Center which offers training for local schools, colleges and organizations.

Younger children will enjoy a FREE kiddie race beginning at 8:45 a.m. The 8K for youth and adults will begin at 9:00.

$30 race entry fee for the 8K (Price increase to $35 after November 29, 2019 at 11:59pm EST), shrimp and grits, beer (21 & older), and post-race festivities. Prizes will be awarded to youth with most funds raised. Prizes will also be awarded to best overall in women and men in each age category.

**STAY TUNED FOR REGISTRATION INFORMATION**

Georgia Grown and its partner organizations are inviting you to participate in a spectacular selling opportunity in Savannah this holiday season. There has never been an event quite like this anywhere in the Savannah and it is sure to attract thousands of people ready to make purchases for the perfect holiday gifts. No event hosted by Georgia grown has had the level of promotion that this event will enjoy. So, remember, all interested vendors should apply as soon as possible as this event will be curated. Below is general information and a link to specific details and the application form. You will have an opportunity to decline participation later, if you wish to do so.

• When: Saturday, December 14, 2019 – noon to 7:00pm

• Where: Along the Savannah River in front of the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort and Spa, and the Savannah Convention Center

• Easy parking: Savannah Convention Center

• Admission fee: Public will donate new, unwrapped toy or $5.00 donation. Proceeds to be donated to the Empty Stocking Fund

• Types of vendors: Georgia Grown members, craftsman and artisan from throughout Georgia. Sampling encouraged. No prepared food, alcohol or food trucks at this event.

• Expected number of vendors: 60 to 100 +/- Due to the venue, prepared food, alcohol, and food trucks are excluded from this event.

• Why should you should participate: This event is designed to be the biggest annual Georgia Grown event and optimized for selling!

• This event will be curated: To have a well-rounded group of vendors and minimize competition of specific products, this event will be curated. Please apply ASAP. Link is below.

• To Book for Special Vendor Rate Offer– Georgia Grown vendors should contact Hotel direct @ 912-201-2048 and request the Vendor Rate offer for the Savannah Holiday Market. Or they can use the booking link at https://book.passkey.com/event/49963794/owner/3958/home

• Other events at Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort and Spa: Famous Annual Gingerbread House competition (Draws thousands). More to be announced.

• Expected attendance: Savannah draws many thousands of visitors every day (over 14 million visitors per year). This will be the most significant event and the highlight of the entire weekend in Savannah

• Event promotion: Visit Savannah will begin promotion of this event in September to a four to five hour drive market including, Macon, Atlanta, Charlotte, Charleston, and Jacksonville.

• Entertainment: A program of holiday entertainment and characters will be featured.

• Fee for booth space:$200 to $300

• Georgia Grown Member Discount: A $100 discount will be applied to paid Georgia Grown members. (If you are not a member or unsure if you are paid up to date, click here) Note: The discount on this one event covers the annual membership fee of most Georgia Grown members.

• Included in the fee: 10 x 10 booth space and tent canopy, promotion, and an amazing holiday venue (you bring your own table, chairs, and products) Electricity can be supplied to a booth for an additional fee of $85.

• Partners to Date: Georgia Grown, Visit Savannah, Savannah Area Tourism Leadership Council, Buy Local, Savannah, Savannah Downtown Business Association, Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort and Spa, Savannah Convention Center, Savannah Waterfront Association, The Savannah Harbor Foundation, The Savannah Morning News

CLICK HERE for more info and to Apply!

Every second Saturday | September 2018 – June 2019

We want our attendees to have an unforgettable experience! Join us for complimentary cocktails and water, kindly provided by Hyatt Regency Savannah, at our 2:00 Welcome Reception where you will receive your map and meet some of our sponsoring artists! Art Walk until 6:00, where you will meet us at the DeSoto for more complimentary beverages and our raffle of art and prizes!

NOTE: DATE CHANGED to DEC 15 !! Hey Folks, it’s the holiday season in Savannah ! Time for our Annual FALL HOLIDAY POTLUCK SOCIAL ! Everyone is asked to bring their favorite dish of food. Theme is New York Meets Southern ! Event is for Savannah New Yorkers Club members and friends ! Yes, NJ folks are welcome 🙂 and non-new yorker friends as well 🙂 ! Dress is casual, Hosts will provide water, soft drink beverages, utensils, napkins cups, plates, ice. If you’d like to bring an alcoholic beverage, that’s fine. Completely social – for mingling, networking, getting to know other NEw YOrkers who live in Savannah area now, or Savannah area Folks who have lived in NY! Volunteers are needed for set up and clean up. If you are interested in hosting one of our upcoming socials, – please contact Scott West at ScottinSavannah@gmail.com or call 912-509-4922. we usually get about 50-60 folks attending. All are welcome!

Summon the Sea! Contemporary Artists and Moby Dick examines the work of six contemporary artists—Corey Arnold, Guy Ben-Ner, Patty Chang, Tristin Lowe, Allan Sekula, and Frank Stella—who act as epic storytellers as they respond to, challenge, and celebrate the allegories presented in Melville’s literary classic through large-scale sculpture, photography, prints, and video made since 1985. These artists were selected for the epic nature of their own searching: the bodies of work on view represent a similar tome-like status in each artist’s oeuvre—they were either painstakingly created over multiple years or were executed on an epic scale warranted by a novel like Moby-Dick. These artists’ work encourages dialogue about ecology and nature, economics and industry, human psychology and emotion.

The exhibition comprises four major temporary exhibition galleries in the Jepson Center. Steward South and Kane Gallery: November 1, 2019-February 16, 2020. Levitt and Varnedoe Galleries: October 11, 2019-January 26, 2020.

 

Laney Contemporary Fine Art presents Southern Arcana, a solo exhibition of recent pen and ink drawings, sculptures, and photo-based works by Stephanie Howard. In her first exhibition in Savannah in almost four years, Howard, based in Greenville, South Carolina, continues to be influenced by outsider and folk art practices, vintage photography, illustration, and embroidery, resulting in drawings so densely saturated with ink that they appear to be quilted onto the paper. Southern Arcana is an exhibition conceptually divided into two spaces of thought, inspired by Tarot cards which have been employed since the 15th century in many different cultures to divine the future. The Tarot deck is split into the Major Arcana, time in the past, and the Minor Arcana, time in the potential future. Howard’s work explores the Major Arcana by creating a fictitious narrative of the past composed of Rorschach-like drawings, “documentary” photographs, embroidered garments as “found objects,” and Polaroid images of masked female figures. The collection illustrates a fictitious tribe of Appalachian women which Howard describes as a “balancing force in contrast to powerful and horribly hate-filled southern, mask-wearing male organizations of the past. Ideally, this female tribe would have spanned generations and could balance the scales of feminine and masculine energy in a fictitious history, providing justice or witness to unchecked atrocities.” In the second aspect of Southern Arcana, the Minor Arcana is forecast by divining patterns of the future and interpreting messages “received” from items in a domestic environment. These drawings explore floral still lifes and the repetitious patterns of wallpaper as revelatory or even prophetic. Black marbles float on the surface of Howard’s drawings, as if cast runes, predicting knowledge of the future. Like some homemade version of an ancient tea leaf ceremony, the marbles appear to be cast onto a patterned kitchen tablecloth, each inky square of the checkerboard hand-rendered, revealing patterns of behavior and daily life. The uncertain future is revealed as a game played with the intimacy of the kitchen table. Howard’s densely focused practice explores the context of history, power dynamics, and Southern female experience. Howard’s work can be understood as “threads of time.” Time and labor are visible in generative, trance-like detailing of pen and ink patterns. Repetitions emanate from the paper, emulating the rings of a tree trunk in cross-section; its growth, past and future, recorded in natural linework. The reiterative borders in her work act as both frame and continuation of the subject, recalling late 19th-century daguerreotype portraits framed in floral or fabric borderwork. Referencing votive imagery of figures in the past, typically created by womenfolk, within vernacular cultures as diverse as Bavaria, Latin America, England, Russian folk practice, and the United States, Howard’s work participates in this history and reinvents it. Southern Arcana exaggerates and illustrates the power of women’s visual divination, of intuition with all of its practices and expressions, and the desire to extract meaningful revelations. Stephanie Howard (b. 1980, Greenville, South Carolina) graduated with a BFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2004. Her drawings are collected by individuals and institutions throughout the United States. Howard has exhibited in New York, Atlanta, Savannah and Augusta, Georgia.

 

CrimeStoppers of Savannah-Chatham County is hosting a Boston Butt Fundraiser to kick crime in the butt! Butts are $25 with proceeds going to the Reward Fund for payments to anonymous tipsters who provide information leading to the arrest of any person(s) committing a criminal act.

You can pre-order your butts until Friday, Jan. 31 at 5 p.m. Walkups are welcome and availability will be on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Butts will be available for pick up at the Alee Temple (100 Eisenberg Drive – Savannah).

Order: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kick-crime-in-the-butt-a-boston-butt-fundraiser-tickets-82036177415

Missy Gentile leads art classes referencing a quote from artist Helen Frankenthaler, “There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.”

This is an edict that Gentile has applied to her own art — which she will exhibit December 2 through January 5 at The Society of Bluffton Artists (SoBA) gallery in Old Town Bluffton. Meet the artist during an opening reception from 3-5 p.m. December 8 at the gallery. These events are free and open to the public.

Gentile’s abstract art exhibit, “Fresh Haiku,” evokes a sensation, a feeling, an emotion through the use of color on canvas. Gentile draws inspiration from her life experiences and her core values of service and human connection.

“The paintings are in groups that when seen together, have a unifying theme expressed in each haiku,” Gentile said, adding, “Please enjoy the journey into poetry of my paintings.”

After graduating from Lock Haven University in 1982, Gentile set off for Paris, France with a one-way ticket and $200 in her pocket. The experience of living in Paris for three years laid the foundation for a life of creativity and culture. Gentile went on to settle in Houston, Texas for the next 20 years, where she started her first gallery and dedicated her life to helping others. Gentile volunteered at the Omega House, a hospice for terminal AIDS patients. She facilitated connections and emotional care through sharing a creative art experience.

Gentile continues to exhibit and sell her work — which has been curated in international collections. Her accolades include a 2012 “Art Business Week” feature about a painting in remembrance of September 11, and the cover of Pink Magazine. The Bluffton-based artist also leads an abstract art class at SoBA’s Center for Creative Arts, located next door to the SoBA gallery.

“What the eye sees is what it is,” Gentile said of her work. “How it moves you is the most important.”

Give the gift of SCAD art this holiday season.
DEC. 2-30
Alexander Hall Gallery
668 Indian St.
Monday through Friday
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Closed Dec. 24-25

Winter Reading Challenge encourages all ages to get excited about reading. Everyone can participate: babies, kids, teens, and adults! Track progress online and earn prizes for each hour of reading. Complete 3 hours of reading for a chance to win a grand prize gift card! Free and open to the public. Learn more and register at liveoakpl.org/events/wrc

Artists of the Society of Bluffton Artists (SoBA) are creating original, one-of-a-kind handmade gifts for the 7th annual Holiday Boutique. The boutique is scheduled for December 7-21 at the gallery’s Center for Creative Arts building next door on Church Street in Old Town Bluffton.

The boutique offers the community a unique place to shop for the holidays from local artists with a variety of creative items to choose from — including Santa Clauses, jewelry, cards, holiday decorations, small paintings, floral arrangements, and fiber art. Prices range from $15 to $350.

“It’s always a fun surprise to see the unique, creative things that people bring in,” said Lynda Hawley, SoBA’s fundraising chairwoman. “This gives the SoBA members the opportunity to display and sell other art pieces that normally wouldn’t be sold at the gallery. They really enjoy the challenge.”

The boutique opens from Dec. 7-21. The hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

“The Holiday Boutique is a destination for unique and original holiday gifts and home decor,” said Pam Davis, a SoBA member.

Date: December 8—January 12, 2020

Sunday and Monday: 12:00pm—5:00pm
Tuesday—Saturday: 10:00am—5:00pm
Location: Telfair Museums’ Jepson Center
207 West York Street
Savannah, GA 31401
Pricing:
Adult: $20
Senior (65 ): $18
Active Military (with military ID): $18
Student (ages 13–25 with student ID): $15
Child (Ages 6–12): $5
Child (Ages 5 & under): FREE*
*Does not apply to groups. Up to 4 free children per paying adult.
Contact: Telfair Museums
info@telfair.org

Summary: Telfair’s “I Have Marks to Make” celebrates its 25th year as an inclusive, community-based art exhibition by individuals of diverse ages, backgrounds, and abilities, demonstrating the healing and transformative power of art-making. From its beginning as an exhibition at Telfair by the City’s Therapeutics program, the program has expanded to include works from local health and social service organizations and schools.

Description: Ongoing exhibition program. A large number of submissions are drawn from Telfair’s extensive outreach sessions throughout the community.

Investments provided by the City of Savannah, the Georgia Council for the Arts, and St. Joseph’s/Candler.

Man of La Mancha, directed by Travis Spangenburg with music directed by Warren Heilman. Prepare for cold readings of material from the play. You may prepare a monologue if you desire.

Please bring printed sheet music (with a copy for the music director) to sing, preferably in the style of the show. Music will be available if you don’t have anything prepared. Auditions will be held at 6:30 pm on December 9th and 10th. Rehearsals begin January 6th, 2020 with performances taking place on March 6-8 and March 13-15, 2020.

Callback readings and songs will be from Man of La Mancha on Thursday, Dec. 12.