08/25/02
By Thomas B Harrison
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Mobile Register

Stephen and Emily Savage have been high-profile members of the Mobile-Baldwin arts community since the mid-'90s. Artists and arts activists, the two contribute regularly to exhibitions such as "Art with a Southern Drawl" and the Gulf alternative gallery in Fairhope. They participate in events as diverse as BayFest and First Night Mobile.

As proprietors of the Savage Photo Lab & Gallery in Midtown, they presented a series of impressive photographic exhibitions, from Lyle BongŽ to Kelly Kleinschrodt to students of the Savannah College of Art & Design.

This week the little gallery at 2504 Old Shell Road will close its doors. Timing, technology and a sluggish economy have forced the Savages out of business.

"The decision has been coming for a year," said Stephen Savage, who said business has declined 45 percent during the past year. "I can't afford that drop."

Savage said mounting debt in the low six figures and a poor market has forced closure. He will sell his photo processing equipment and hold a "yard sale" Sept. 7, and anything left over will be placed in a storage facility. He said he is realistic about recouping their investment.

"It's a buyer's market and my equipment will sell as quickly as I lower the price," he said.

Emily Savage said she initially resisted the idea of closing.

"For a while I thought, 'We cannot let this happen,'" she said. "I was adamant that we not close down. Stephen explored all possibilities, and in the final analysis I let him make the decision. I'm the dreamer, and he has to pay the light bill."

The couple would like to remain here. In October the Savages will go to Springdale, Utah, as artists in residence at The Mesa, a creativity center and artists' retreat on 29 spectacular acres at the entrance to Zion National Park.

Sometime during the next year, Stephen Savage hopes to open his own black-and-white lab and take on some private work.

He came to Mobile in 1995 from Washington, D.C., where he worked as a broker for The Equitable Financial Companies and was director of special events for the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

The Savages struck up a friendship with Sam Fiebelman, who owned the Silver Image. After taking over the location, the Savages developed a loyal following and enjoyed respectable growth. The business was listed among the Chamber of Commerce Future 30 awards three years in a row.

Savage Photo Lab & Gallery processed black-and-white and color film, made prints and duplicate slides and handled photo restoration. In a digital age, it was a time-consuming, labor-intensive process. And expensive.

"To some degree, digital (technology) eroded my base," said Stephen Savage. "But not so much that we probably couldn't have weathered the storm, particularly after Sept. 11.

"Our cost structure is not that different, but when you come to Savage Photo Lab, you're a real person. ... There's a sort of give and take you don't find walking into the mall or another store."

Emily Savage admitted the business has changed dramatically.

"We didn't know what we were doing when we started this place or which direction it would go," she said. "It grew organically. We probably should have been nonprofit all along. (The business) is unique in what it does. It's a learning facility, an educational environment, which probably contributes to all the time given to customers and not the bottom line."

The current economic climate does not favor nonprofits in Mobile, she said. Several museums, the library and other institutions are continuously raising money.

"Lots of things are going on in Mobile," she said. "The giving pool is smaller, and (becoming a nonprofit) would have meant too much of an infusion of cash.

"Custom processing is passŽ," she said. "Everything is electronic. We're slow, we're hands-on, and there is a need for this to exist, but it's not in the mainstream."

Among his many commitments, Stephen Savage is immediate past president of the Mobile Arts Council. In 1999 he was named executive director for the now-defunct Center for Contemporary Art, one of two entities under the umbrella of the nonprofit Centre for the Living Arts.

The center was to have been modeled after the arts center in New Orleans as a downtown hub for such diverse activities as statewide and regional juried art competitions and exhibitions, performance art, black-box theater, block parties, concerts and arts festivals.

However, the center never was funded and plans were shelved indefinitely.
Savage said he doesn't think he spread himself too thin with non-business-related commitments.
"I hope not," he said. "That would be terrible if that's the case. Those are things I did willingly. ... What I was doing and will continue to do, as best I can, is be helpful to the community, and what's good for the community is good for all, in my opinion."

The Savages were more successful with their series of photographic exhibitions such as their eclectic "Dog Days of Summer" show and exhibitions by gifted students such as Kelly Kleinschrodt.

The Savages' friends and colleagues are distraught over news that the business will shut down.

"I think it sucks," said Randy Moberg, an artist and friend of the couple.

"I have a lot of the photos and slides I use for references developed there," he said. "It's a little stopping point for the arts community. (Stephen's) shows were a communal thing and brought together people who didn't get together that often. It's kind of a shame."

Leigh J. Brown, photographer and instructor at St. Paul's School, said the closing is "a tragic, terrible thing for many reasons."

"Stephen and Emily brought the community of fine art photographers together," Brown said. "(They) are both so energetic, and they encouraged photographers to produce art and have it appreciated by others."

Catt Sirten, photographer and host of "Radio Avalon" for WHIL-F91.3, credits the Savages for redirecting and focusing his creative energies.

"If it wasn't for (Stephen), I'm sure I'd still be out here trying to take pretty pictures of landscapes," Sirten said. "Through them, I discovered the world and history of photography.

"I had never heard of Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Henri Cartier-Bresson or Edward Weston. I was like most people in America -- when it came to photography, I thought of Ansel Adams. ... It's a vast world out there, and they opened my eyes and caused me to strive to be a photographer. They helped me develop a real hunger to know how to see."

Sirten said the Savages solidified and promoted the photographic arts, which had never happened in Mobile.
"The gallery became an art forum where artists learned and exchanged ideas and educated themselves," he said. "They developed a real community in the photographic world that wasn't here before.

"That's what I'm sad about. When it goes away ... we will lose that communal launching pad."