Lighting the way: How the Streetlight Guild preserves Black art and culture in Columbus

Samantha Harden
Thu, 06 Mar 2025 05:34:54 +0000
Arts & Life, Black Voices, Fine Arts, Instagram Page, News, Print Edition, 31 days of Columbus Black Art, art database, black art, black artists, Black Columbus Visual Artists List, black voices, Black Voices print edition, columbus art, columbus art scene, Columbus Black art, Columbus Black artists, Columbus culture, Contemporary Color, Glen Kizer, holler, Holler: 31 Days of Columbus Black Art, kafe kerouac, local art, ohio state faculty club, scott woods, Sean Christopher gallery, Streetlight Guild, Streetlight Guild Black Columbus Visual Artists List, The Lantern, The Lantern Black Voices, Tiffany Lawson [and 1 more]

The Streetlight Guild aims to create, refine, and preserve Columbus-based culture, focusing on marginalized voices by hosting events, supporting artists, and organizing poetry readings, book releases, workshops, and other culturally relevant activities in their space at 1367 E. Main St. Credit: Faith Schneider | Lantern Photographer

The date was March 3, 2017. It was also day three of art event organizer Scott Woods’ month-long series, titled “Holler: 31 Days of Columbus Black Art.”?

The dimly lit back room of Kafe Kerouac pulsed with the sound of guitar solos reverberating from bookcase to bookcase.?

As Columbus-based rock band The Turbos neared the end of its set, Woods took it all in — the music, the event series, the joy of getting an opportunity to showcase Black art in his city. It was just after 8 p.m. and the night was nearly over when a tall, sophisticated-looking man with salt-and-pepper- — but mostly salt- — colored hair approached him.?

The man asked Woods what it would take to make something like Holler happen year-round.?

With a sarcastic tone, Woods said, “Well, a venue would be nice.”

What Woods didn’t realize at the time was the man wasn’t only curious — he was wealthy. That man was Glen Kizer, who Woods recognized as a frequent attendee of his art events.

“Well, how about I buy the building and give you the keys?” Kizer asked.?

Just over two years later, in summer 2019, Woods and Kizer — then-president of the Foundation for Environmental Education — founded the Streetlight Guild, a nonprofit performing arts organization dedicated to curating multidisciplinary events — spanning poetry, music, fine arts and more — with a focus on Columbus-based, original and historically excluded voices.

The Streetlight Guild aims to create, refine, and preserve Columbus-based culture, focusing on marginalized voices by hosting events, supporting artists, and organizing poetry readings, book releases, workshops, and other culturally relevant activities in their space at 1367 E. Main St. Credit: Faith Schneider | Lantern Photographer

In the past five years, Woods said the gallery has focused on preserving Columbus’ culture, which inspired him to create the “Black Columbus Visual Artists List” this February. The list, he explained, is a database featuring the names of 200 Black artists from Columbus over the past 50 years.?

Clearly, Woods is no stranger to Columbus’ arts and culture scene.?

Prior to opening Streetlight Guild, Woods said he had organized various arts-related events, including Writers’ Block Poetry Night at Kafe Kerouac — which he had hosted since 1998 — “Holler” and other one-off concerts and programs. However, he said he eventually realized that having a dedicated space for this kind of cultural and artistic exposure would be essential in Columbus.?

“It ultimately became clear that a space was needed that was dedicated to constantly putting those artists forward,” Woods said. “I had no idea when or how that might happen, and I was getting to a point in my life where I thought it may never actually happen.”?

Then came Kizer. And once “Holler” ended, the work began. Kizer said he and Woods spent weeks exploring different spaces throughout Columbus.

“I ended up driving by that spot on East Main,” Kizer said. “The area had been gentrified, and I felt like the venue should be in that area that, at one time, Blacks were required to live there and now they were being kicked out. I went through it and it needed a lot of work, but it just felt right.”

Paintings, sculptures and jewelry are displayed at the Streetlight Guild. Credit: Faith Schneider | Lantern Photographer

Kizer said the space was previously a salon, with sinks that had to be removed in every room, a bathroom near the entrance that needed to be relocated, a front porch that had to be demolished, flood-damaged floors, a collapsing roof and frozen, cracked pipes — but despite the challenges, the work would be worth it.?

And there was still the task of defining the founding principles that would shape Streetlight Guild — most notably, crafting its mission statement.?

“The mission of Streetlight Guild is to create, refine and preserve Columbus-based culture with an emphasis on marginalized voices,” Woods said. “What that means in practice is that we do events, we host artists, we do poetry readings, we do book releases, we do workshops, we do pretty much anything that you can consider culturally. And we do all of that in this space.”?

Woods said he always knew a commitment to creative freedom was essential to the guild’s core values, making it a foundational principle from the very beginning.?

“I don’t really put any parameters on our artists, which is the benefit of our space,” Woods said. “I will let you do anything — I will let you paint the walls; I will let you bring in furniture; I will let you do whatever you need to realize the vision for your art. I want artists, and musicians, and poets and whoever, I want them to bring the free-est version of themselves into this space.”

One such artist is Tiffany Lawson.?

Woods said he first met Lawson at a 2017 art-exchange event hosted by the Columbus Cultural Arts Center. At the event, a group of artists was selected to create pieces, while a group of poets was assigned to choose a piece and write an acrostic poem inspired by it. Woods, a poet at the event, chose Lawson’s piece.?

“And then we didn’t talk to each other for years after that,” Woods said. “Unbeknownst to me, she had been kind of floating in and out of events that I had been doing and wasn’t really making herself known, so I didn’t notice her. Finally, she came to the open mics I had been doing at Kafe Kerouac, and she had started to come out to that every week, and so then we really started to engage and to know one another.”?

In 2022, Woods said he was in the early stages of developing the Streetlight Guild’s studio spaces, so he invited Lawson to be one of the guild’s first resident artists that year.

A bottle-like sculpture is displayed at the Streetlight Guild. Credit: Faith Schneider | Lantern Photographer

Lawson said the decision to become a resident artist was an easy one, as the guild’s mission aligned closely with her own values.?

“Streetlight Guild is an institution, a cultural institution in that it magnifies the art and the culture that surround the city, and that has always been important to me,” Lawson said. “Streetlight Guild has done a very good job in that it has found a way to preserve and to refine art in the city and the culture in the city. It is most definitely a treasure.”?

Lawson said her first exhibit at Streetlight Guild took place in 2023. It served as the third and final installment of her “Contemporary Color Deluxe” traveling show — a retrospective featuring 23 pieces that encapsulated a decade of her career.?

“I am very appreciative of Streetlight Guild for allowing me to show the ‘Contemporary Color’ show in its final leg,” Lawson said. “It was at the Ohio State Faculty Club, then it went to Sean Christopher Gallery down in the Short North and then it had felt like a homecoming to show it at the Streetlight Guild last.”?

Woods said in addition to promoting the work of local Black artists, it’s crucial to preserve the history of Black art. He said this is what led him and Lawson to jointly create the “Black Columbus Visual Artists List.”?

“Part of Streetlight Guild’s mission is to create Columbus culture, and part of that work is building resources that people can use,” Woods said. “Having information in hand about the scale and amount of art in certain contexts can be a powerful tool.”??

Woods said he and Lawson have been working on the list since last summer, dedicating countless hours to researching artists, reaching out to them and discussing additional names based on their own connections. Initially, their goal was to include just 100 artists, but Woods said Lawson quickly realized there were many more to recognize, leading them to expand the list to 200 names.?

“If you worked in Columbus in art in the last 50 years and you’re Black, then you’re probably on that list,” Woods said. “And if you’re not, well, we hope to continue to add to it.”?

Woods said the guild will continue to update the list with new names every six months. Additionally, he said he and Lawson maintain a more extensive database that includes details such as artists’ birth and death dates, preferred mediums and whether they were born in Columbus or simply worked there — information he hopes to incorporate into the public list in the future.?

With diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives facing growing uncertainty, Woods said the work of Streetlight Guild — especially projects like the “Black Columbus Visual Artists List” — is more vital than ever. He also emphasized the need to provide Columbus artists, especially those whose voices are often marginalized, with the space to present their work on their own terms, ensuring their diverse perspectives are recognized rather than suppressed.

Collaged paintings by Tiffany Lawson are displayed at the Streetlight Guild. Credit: Faith Schneider | Lantern Photographer

“If you live in a society that is attacking concepts like diversity and equality, you should be doubling down on cultural things,” Woods said. “And culture isn’t just the arts; people conflate those two things all the time. Art is definitely art, but culture is not entirely art. Culture is many things — it is the way that we live; it is our language; it is our passion; it is our ideas; it is our values, and so art allows us to access those things directly and in a way that makes sense to us.”?

Kizer said over the past five years, he has felt grateful to have the opportunity to watch Streetlight Guild expand its influence as the artwork and events that occupy the space continue to evolve.?

“Art is not like selling insurance; it’s interesting and varied, and you have to keep trying new things,” Kizer said. “The best thing about it is that the original idea is still there, but what [Woods has] been good at is trying different things. He’s been able to do a whole bunch of different things successfully because he tries things, learns from them and either modifies them or lets them go and tries something else. In a way, the building is like a piece of art. It’s not the same as it was, but it’s in the same vein.”?

Kizer said in the years since the guild opened, he has moved away from the Columbus area to be closer to his grandchildren, but still makes time each year to return to the venue.?

“Every time I’m in there, I get tears in my eyes,” Kizer said. “It’s a bunch of great artists doing great work, with great audiences, and everybody appreciates it and it’s just wonderful.”?

Streetlight Guild is open every Saturday from noon to 3 p.m., with additional hours varying based on scheduled events. For more information about Streetlight Guild, including access to the “Black Columbus Visual Artists List,” visit its website.