Two Savannah College of Art and Design students, Amy Spurlock & Robyn Reeder, opened Primary Art Supply on Valentine’s Day 1996 in Savannah Georgia. Both Amy & Robyn were pursuing their degrees in Metals & Jewelry at the time and joined forces to expand on an idea that Amy Spurlock had created in 1994, a tiny art materials store called “Cabaret Voltaire.” Cabaret Voltaire was not your typical college art supply store, besides it’s unique name, it not only sold art supplies but also cigarettes, tobacco pipes, and jewelry.

With the growth of SCAD, Amy quickly realized that her funky little store was seeing an increasingly larger audience with high demands. With Amy’s vision and business sense, and Robyn’s extensive retail experience and spunk, they acquired a couple of loans, a larger building, and a more straightforward name, Primary Art Supply.

Since the grand opening in 1996, Primary Art Supply has been constantly expanding and growing with the college and the art community in Savannah. Primary went from occupying the first floor of their three story building on Broughton St. to now providing two full floors of not only the largest selection of art supplies in Savannah but fun gift items as well. Primary utilizes the third floor of the building which houses a full custom service department that creates made-to-order hand stretched canvas, panels, and other raw materials cut to size like plexi-glass and plywood. The custom shop is also a place where exciting projects are conceived like our window display installations and new store fixtures.

Primary Art Supply not only owes a lot of its success to the thriving college and art community but also to it’s incredibly dedicated staff. Sebastian Edwards has been with Primary since the beginning, building shelves and working on building renovation projects has enabled Primary to grow and accommodate such a large variety of supplies. He also heads the custom service department on the third floor where he works closely with the talented craftsman Stephen Kennedy. Scot Kelly, a SCAD painting alumni, has also been at Primary for many years, he is the buyer for the store and goes above and beyond the norm by constantly seeking out new and interesting products as well as researching individual requests from customers and SCAD faculty.

In September of 2007, Amy and Robyn had the opportunity to purchase the old Hallmark building two doors down at 22 E. Broughton St. At this time they renovated the building and Civvies New and Recycled Clothing opened. Civvies is a pop boutique filled with cutting edge fashion and housewares both new and vintage. Civvies has proven to complement Primary Art Supply since all of our funky art students and locals need a place to get their cute outfits!

Primary will continue to grow and support Savannah’s lively art community. We are always looking for your opinion on what we can do to better serve your artistic needs!