New creative studio opening in downtown Aiken

Jan. 21—In the upstairs of a downtown building just steps from The Alley and with a view of Laurens Street, is 3 Keys Creative Studio .

The studio, located at 142 Laurens St. S.W., , is a place where photographers, artists and videographers can co-work.

According to Kelvin Jenkins, who also co-owns 3 Keys Creative Marketing alongside Jimmie Johnson, the largely undecorated space allows for creativity.

"One reason why we want to keep it as sterile as possible is because we want them to come in and see the blank canvas and they can create their personality, they can create whatever they want to create here," Jenkins said. "Like for me, this environment here is just an accepting environment, like you come in and you feel at peace here. You hear the traffic but I feel like a lot of the artists in the area have been overlooked."

Jenkins, with Johnson and photographer Daniel Wood, started the studio out of need for a community creative outlet.

"I feel that times are hard for a lot of people and there's so much creativity in Aiken, and I don't think people feel like they have a place where they can spread their wings," Jenkins said. "...Aiken is such an eclectic area and there are so many creatives here, and there are so many young kids that want to get their hands in everything, but where do they go? And there's such a really good vibe downtown that we felt that this was the perfect environment."

"We would love to get as many people in here as we can because we don't want to kind of keep it to ourselves, where we want to just do our own thing," Johnson said. "We want everyone to be able to come in and experience and do some creative things themselves."

They hope the studio becomes a place that can help young people who are interested in creative fields learn about the industry.

"They don't learn the same way that we used to learn coming up and now everybody with their cellphones they create anything at the touch of their fingers," Johnson said. "...Giving the youth something different that you might see in a bigger city that you usually wouldn't have here, I think that it is going to be something that gets a lot of people to come in and go together and build a community around that type of creativity."

Jenkins and Johnson hope to add computers for multimedia skills courses. The creative studio will have photography tools, conference rooms, spaces for visual artists and desk rentals. Users will be able to rent parts of the studio via an automated website, and have access to the building with safe security features.

Wood hopes that 3 Keys Creative Studio can become a hub to create art in a revitalized downtown Aiken.

"It would be great to see more of the photographers be able to come in, perfect their craft, to be able to create what they want to be able to create," Wood said. "I'm a photographer but I know plenty of other photographers and I want to have my business, but I also want them to be able to further their business and if we can do that for photographers, for videographers, painters, whoever might need a space to do what they can do, that would be great."