S. Kay Young is a Native American Detroit based artist, art advocate and teacher with a 42 year photographic career. A descendant of the Eastern Band Cherokee Nation, her work is in numerous private and corporate collections, including The Detroit Institute of Arts, The University of Michigan and Cobo Center (The Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority) in Detroit.
A 1980 graduate of the famed College for Creative Studies in Detroit , she studied the art of photography and from 1979 through 1989 Young was a photographer and Rights and Reproduction broker at The Detroit Institute of Arts.
She has managed art galleries, both local and national, and has represented Special Needs Adults photographers/artists in exhibitions and private sales. Young has curated and judged numerous art exhibitions in Detroit and is a consultant for private and corporate art collectors. S. Kay teaches photography at Oakland Community College, Farmington Hills extended education, SHAC in Milford, MI and the Special Needs Community in the Greater Detroit area. She is a private tutor of photography and multi media art to children and disabled adults.
Her work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions throughout her career including solo shows, ‘Wildflower Paintings, A Photographic Exhibition’ at The Detroit Institute of Arts in 1998 and sponsored by the Fuji and Chrysler Corporation and ‘Dancing the Circle of Life’ at the Native Indian Inuit Photographers Association, Hamilton, Ontario in 1994. In addition, she has lectured at The Smithsonian for the American Indian in New York addressing the colonization of Native people in partnership with the American Indian Community House in New York City.
Young was the first Artist in Residence at The Boll Family YMCA Metro Detroit in 2004. She documented the two year construction of the building project from ground breaking to building opening culminating in a book project and exhiubition.
In 2014 Young and her students were featured in an Emmy winning segment on PBS ‘Detroit Performs’ you can view HERE.
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