Photo by Katherine Rountree
Oglethorpe Gallery hosted a launch party Friday night for the eighth issue of Aint-Bad Magazine, which featured work from a photo collection entitled, “The American South.” The images in “American South” were taken in Southern states by Southern photographers, and they work to capture both the romantic and realistic aspects of Southern culture.
Aint-Bad was started in 2011 by five SCAD photography students with the goal of creating a space that would allow them to continue to work constructively with other artists after graduation. SCAD photography alumni Taylor Curry and Carson Sanders are two of the magazine’s original founders that continue to serve as editors for the publication.
“We were thinking about what we were going to be doing after college, how we were going to loose this critique atmosphere, and what were we going to do about that,” said Curry, a Savannah native. “We decided to create this forum where we could collaborate with peers that we respected, and to critique each others’ work outside of the classroom.”
In 2011, Curry, Sanders and the other founders printed out 100 copies of the first issue. They quickly sold through these and since then have seen the same success with subsequent issues. Aint-Bad is published quarterly and is funded by the proceeds from each previous issue.
Kory Kingsley, a fourth-year photography major from Manchester, Vermont, works as one of the magazine’s editors. A large part of her job is helping to decide what material the magazine will publish next.
“We really wanted to hone in on our era, our hometown, and the area in the South that we live in, focusing only on the Southern states,” Kingsley said of the current issue.
“We have conversations,” Curry said. “We meet and have critiques about artwork and we look at what we’re interested in and kind of decide upon a theme.”
This issue’s theme, as explained on the magazine’s back cover, dealt with the “contemporary conceptions of the American South and how it is defined and being redefined.”
At the launch party, a crowd largely made up of SCAD faculty and students thronged together to learn more about this curious local publication. Leather-clad hipsters, blue-ribbon beers in hand, mingled with parents and families in an atmosphere that welcomed all who came.
Savannah resident Tanya Hastings enjoyed the photographs’ consistent theme.
“The images are all beautifully curated to complete a cohesive collection,” said Hastings. “I liked how you could follow one train of thought throughout the gallery, even though each picture looks at the concept differently.”
Sanders confirmed Hastings’s observation when he said, “We kind of subconsciously curate around this one aesthetic, or a few common aesthetics in terms of photography.”
Aside from running Aint-Bad, Curry and Sanders continue to work with the photography department here at SCAD. Both strongly value their educations at SCAD, and take this into consideration while they review submitted work.
“We’re looking for artists that are receiving their MFAs or have received their MFAs, that come from an educational background as we did,” said Sanders. “The educational side of photography is something that we’ve remained very close to since we graduated.”
Curry and Sanders hope that guests at the launch party will be inspired to further explore all that Aint-Bad has to offer, both in print and online. Aint-Bad publishes new content on their website five days a week. They receive submissions from artists all across the globe.
