WITH ALL THE back-and-forth over harbor deepening and other jobs issues, I’d actually say if you want to be bullish on a local product, art is your hot stock.

2012 is indeed looking like a banner year for visual arts in Savannah, as this week’s issue illustrates.

I’ve seen and done a lot of cool things in this job, but being a juror for an art show hasn’t been one of them.

Now that Jerome Meadows and the folks at Indigo Sky Community Gallery generously requested that I serve as guest juror for their upcoming show “Weather or Not,” I can cross that off my list.

The show — which opens this weekend with a live performance of my choice for best–in–show entry, “Dreamtime Synastry” — deals with the theme of environmental and social change against the backdrop of the supposed Mayan prophecy of upcoming world’s end.

(Death, despair, apocalypse? I’m your go–to guy, I guess!)

“Dreamtime Synastry” is the collaborative effort of two SCAD students, Matthew Cooper and Chelsea DeMercado. Of all the varied pieces I chose to be in the exhibition, this was my best-in-show because the juxtaposition of DeMercado’s complex calligraphic stylings and Cooper’s primordial didgeridoo playing seem to encapsulate the human experience with a nod to how we’ve gotten so far away from living in harmony with our planet.

Cooper and DeMercado will perform the piece at the opening of “Weather or Not” this Saturday at 6 p.m. at Indigo Sky, at 915 Waters Ave. Read my talk with the engaging Matthew Cooper in this issue.

And hey, if this editor gig doesn’t work out, I think I might be able to make it as an art show curator! Come see the show and judge for yourself...

Savannah has quietly become chock-a-block with these kinds of small, passionate studios, like Little Beasts Gallery, whose new “Sketchbook” show is profiled this week by Bill DeYoung.

SCAD of course remains a player, as their newly expanded Museum of Art hosts a lecture and show by renowned multimedia artist Liza Lou. Our Jessica Leigh Lebos talks with her this issue.

The South’s oldest art museum, our own Telfair, has a full slate of events scheduled for the year under brand-new director Lisa Grove, including the always ambitious and fun Pulse Festival, which moves to late February this year.

In late-breaking news, the local collective SeeSavannahArtWalls (SeeSAW) just got permission from the city for an ambitious mural project at 34th and Habersham. Local artist Katherine Sandoz will do the honors.

SeeSAW founders Matt Hebermehl and James “Dr. Z” Zdaniewski hope the project will help usher in a new acceptance and renaissance of public art in Savannah. To donate, go to SeeSAW’s Kickstarter page.

The optimistic, vibrant, DIY spirit of Savannah artists is also exemplified by Joanne Morton, who’s literally taking her show on the road. She invites you to Emmet Park this Monday, MLK Day, from 1–4 p.m. to help create a public art project “Mass Manifesting Mobile."

Morton, who has been creating art on Tybee Island at Dragonfly Studio, sees the event as a kickoff of her “Magic Passion Love” nationwide public art tour.

There’s art in Savannah if you want it, so much that we’re exporting it! Enjoy it and never take it for granted...