SeeSaw Studio

SeeS aw S tudio

Article by Susan Simone - grants & development writer, SeeSaw Studio

Say I’m a young person who loves to draw. Say I live in a pretty rundown neighborhood and spending money on art classes is out of the question. How am I going to connect up with somebody else who thinks like me?

Charles Joyner is one person who has spent the last 25 years devel oping some concrete answers to these hard questions. In 1979 Joyner started Design Camp, an NC State summer program for young people from rural areas. “It was easy to come up with that concept,” he explains,

One of the banners produced by the SeeSaw Youth Designers during Joyner’s residency at SeeSaw. The banner is painted and screen printed on nylon canvas.

“because when I grew up as a black youth in rural North Carolina and

had no idea that I could go to NCSU. I wanted to change that.”

In 1998 Charles Joyner joined Department Chair of Art + Design Chandra Cox in another outreach project, an independent art and design studio for young people (13-21 years old) called SeeSaw Studio. Founded by sculptor Steven Wainwright, the studio is located on Main Street in

downtown Durham. As members of the board, advisors and advocates

for SeeSaw Studio, Joyner and Cox have participated in the evolution

of an after-school enrichment curriculum that ranges from technical

training to production and sales. Today SeeSaw Studio Youth Designers

produce FunKtional TM

products including a unique line of pillows, the

Urban Print Collection, sewn from fabric they design and print themselves.

Each year SeeSaw Studio invites two artists to lead a Community Collaborations project. This year Joyner made the leap and moved from the sidelines into the action, accepting an invitation to lead the Fall 2004 residency. His assignment was to work with Youth Designers on two print-making projects. The first was collaboration between SeeSaw Studio, the women’s sewing circle and the youth group (Jovenes Lideres en Accion – JLA) from El Centro Hispano to create banners for La Feria de Salud – a health fair. “I had never done anything like that before,” Alma Garcia, a member of the women’s sewing circle, exclaimed. “But I liked working on the banners a lot. I liked the color and the way they brought together the feeling of the culture.”

Color seems to have been an important part of Joyner’s residency. While the El Centro participants were pleased with their banners, the Youth Designers were not always enthusiastic about Joyner’s ideas on color. The second part of the residency was a commission for Blue Devil Ventures, a commercial development group who wanted a set of decorative banners for the renovated Durham tobacco buildings, West Village . “[The Youth Designers] were very outspoken about my colors,” Joyner

commented, “almost going as far as to say that some of my choices were dated.” Joyner is wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. The Youth Designers are dressed in a loud and wild array of styles. Leaning back in his chair, Joyner continued, “So we talked about it. I suggested that we do a trend board – collecting colors from what’s out there now: sneakers, fashions, cars. And guess what – they were correct. My colors are kind of dated!”

This is the out-spoken energy that Joyner loves. Surveying the banners waiting to be installed Joyner is emphatic, “I want to point out that the results, ALL those ideas came from the Youth Designers. In each one of the final pieces, they can point back to the seed in an idea they introduced.” The Youth Designers were quick to counter that Joyner was not a soft sell. “With Charles, he has a method where he’ll come up with an idea and then he’ll trace it and change it a little bit and trace it and re-change it.” a young woman explained, frowning as she remembers struggling with the frustration of revision. “I wasn’t quite as patient as that so if I did something, he would ask me, ask any of us, to draw it again in a series and make it a little better each time.”

“Yes,” another Youth Designer added turning his hands palms up, “even if it was good, he would ask us to refine it.”

Joyner accepts this praise with a sly smile. He gives a lot of the credit to Director of SeeSaw Studio Amy Milne (BED 1990) and Studio Program Director Eric Emmanuel Thompson II (BAD 2003), who set up the schedule and organized the work each day.

“Eric did an excellent job,” Joyner says. “I would walk in and he would have a schedule for what was going on. There were days when both projects were going on at the same time; times when every aspect of the studio, the computer-generated imagery, the screen-printing, the painting, the sewing, all of that was going on. It was just magical!” The Youth Designers agreed. “It was the most fun,” one designer remarked, his hands waving in every direction, “when everyone was here. The music was blaring and there was a lot of action. You really felt like something was getting done!”

Looking back, Joyner admits that they had to push hard to meet their deadlines, but he concludes, “I can’t point to a single bad day!”

Milne remembers the day that Cox came into the software lab at NC State where she was working and presented a one sentence description of the studio. “I looked at it and I knew right away I wanted to get involved!” “One of the things that NCSU or any other university is trying to figure out,” Joyner explained, “is how we can make a positive impact on K-12 . SeeSaw Studio is a program that has a lot of possibilities. It is a lesson for all of us –you don’t have to go into the school and interrupt the school day. You just have to create something that is different and adds to that school day. SeeSaw Studio is a wonderful model.”

Charles Joyner leading a critique session with the SeeSaw Youth Designers, Fall 2004

In the fall of 2005, Sean Coleman, another SeeSaw Studio graduate, will enroll in the class of 2009 at the College of Design. Coleman and all of the past and future Youth Designers who will cross over the educational boundaries between their circumstances and the opportunities offered by the College of Design represent the heart of the connection that propelled Joyner to take on this residency and sign up for a second project in 2006.

This is what young people need if they are going to develop both the skills and the confidence they need to move from loving to draw to finding joy and satisfaction in a career as a commercial artist – a mentor who knows how to be tough and cool at the same time and then have fun. This is the legacy that NS State, Milne, Joyner, Thompson, Cox and all the other faculty and students have pulled together in the lively partner ship that is growing between NC State and SeeSaw Studio.