Alum Jonathan Green’s Maritime Cultural Center Brings the Lowcountry to the Surface
by Joe Giovannetti
When School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) alum Jonathan Green (BFA 1982) and education expert Kim Cliett Long met in Naples, Florida in the early ‘90s, they had no idea their connection—forged through art, education, and community work—would lead to the birth of a major cultural institution.
Thirty-five years later, they’re working together to change the face of historical pedagogy through the Jonathan Green Maritime Cultural Center on University of South Carolina Beaufort’s (USCB) campus—dedicated to preserving the heritage and traditions of the Lowcountry and African diaspora.
Jonathan Green, Market Women Succession, 2024, oil on canvas
Jonathan Green, Market Women Succession, 2024, oil on canvas
Jonathan Green, Casting for Bait, 2005, oil on canvas
Jonathan Green, Casting for Bait, 2005, oil on canvas
On one swirl through Green’s career retrospective at the center, an individual might experience his set and costume designs from Porgy and Bess, an opera set in the Lowcountry; a traveling exhibit on the Maritime Underground Railroad, exploring enslaved people’s search for freedom by water; and an international art collection celebrating Charlestonian Joel Poinsett, who discovered the poinsettia plant and transported it to the United States by sea.
Jonathan Green, Market Women Succession, 2024, oil on canvas
Jonathan Green, Market Women Succession, 2024, oil on canvas
Image courtesy of the Jonathan Green Maritime Cultural Center
Image courtesy of the Jonathan Green Maritime Cultural Center
The title of “cultural center,” holds intention; boasting a combination of exhibits, educational programs, and community initiatives, the center shares the same interdisciplinarity that defines Green’s creative ethos.
As an SAIC student, Green absorbed everything he could. From mastering the Ébauche underpainting method in his favorite course, Materials and Technique, to studying the greats during museum security guard shifts, he holds the School’s impact in high regard.
“SAIC is the design mechanism to my career as an artist,” he said. “My goal was never to become a successful artist; it was to learn.”
Fast forward to the present, and ”successful artist” barely scratches the surface. Painting, drawing, fashion, ballet, theater, opera—Green is the personification of interdisciplinary artistry. His critically acclaimed work has been featured in collections around the world, including the United States, Europe, Africa, and Japan. Since 1982, Green has received four honorary doctoral degrees, and in 2017, he was named “Ambassador for the Arts” for Charleston, South Carolina, by former mayor John Tecklenburg.
Green and Long first conceived of the center when Harris Pastides, UCSB president emeritus, expressed his desire to honor Jonathan’s accomplishments with a traditional museum. But the pair had a different plan.
“We had been studying African maritime history, realizing that there was a knowledge gap. We thought it should be a maritime museum,” explained Long, the center’s administrator. She and Green saw an opportunity to fill those gaps, inspired by Green’s South Carolina Lowcountry upbringing and his over 45-year dedication to documenting Gullah Geechee customs and traditions.
The ribbon cutting of the cultural center. Image courtesy of the Jonathan Green Maritime Cultural Center
The ribbon cutting of the cultural center. Image courtesy of the Jonathan Green Maritime Cultural Center
“We can’t tackle some of our lifelong problems, because we don’t relate to their history,” Long said. “We’re going back and reclaiming those narratives.”
For Green, opening the center is akin to cracking open a long-impenetrable door to history.
His only hope? That people walk through.
“If you don't understand life from the perspective of water, maritime, estuary, then we’ve provided access to that information, which you would have never found in hundreds of years,” Green said. “It’ll change your life. Everyone’s lives.” ■
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