As I stood next to artist Tommy Turner, better known as SAVO888 on Instagram and Twitch, outside the artist alley section on the balcony at TwitchCon, he shared one of his earliest memories of his childhood and drawing.
“I remember one of my first memories is I copied a painting on the wall,” Turner said. “I think every black family in the world has it. So it’s like a little boy with a teardrop coming down his face.”
Turner also shared the reaction he received from his mother after copying the painting.
“My mom was in the kitchen having coffee with all of her friends, which was a regular thing on the weekends, and I showed her, and she was gushing all over me,” Turner said. “‘Oh, my God, this is so amazing. You have amazing talent.’ All of her friends gave me compliments. And from that point on, I wanted to be an artist.”
Turner is a San Diego-based artist who attended this year’s TwitchCon as one of the artists showcasing their work at the artist alley section.
He attended three years of community college at San Diego Mesa and San Diego City colleges. At City, he took theater with instructor Lyman Saville and completed his undergrad requirements.
While teaching theater at Logan Elementary, Turner was offered a job at Z90.3. He promptly quit teaching to start his radio career.
Growing up, Turner would often get grounded due to his talkative nature. During his punishment, he was only allowed to read.
One day, Turner convinced his mom to let him read his comic books, and he began to trace over the pages.
“I talked her into letting me read my comic books, and then I started tracing those, and then I started drawing my own comics, and then it went into graffiti,” Turner said. “And the next thing, you know, it’s fine art, mixed with graffiti and pop art.”
Turner’s favorite character is Silver Surfer from the Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer comics; he said he gravitated to the “all-powerful” and “cool” attributes of the character.
Apart from being an artist, Turner had gone through multiple careers, including a few years of radio and stand-up comedy.
Turner also shared how he got his start on Twitch and how the platform helped grow his following. This came at a time when he quit his teaching job at Logan Elementary and moved to the beach to scale back his life.
He was looking for a gaming streamer when he came across the art side of Twitch.
“ He wasn’t on, and I came across this button, a category for ‘creative’. I seen people drawing and painting and stuff,” Turner said. “And I was like, I’m gonna take what I did, stand-up, radio, theater and art, and I’m gonna start streaming.”
Turner’s first painting he did on Twitch, was a painting of deceased rapper Biggie Smalls, and he began gaining traction on the platform.
The canvas he received to create that painting came from his neighbors who lived in the building.
“Out of the blue, I find one of my neighbors had put like nine canvases in front of my door,” Turner said. “They were like, used old canvases, IKEA, whatever. They were funky. And I used one of those canvases to paint Biggie Smalls on Twitch.”
Turner’s optimism for traditional art was reflected in his sentiment toward those who purchase his artwork and support him.
“All artists, we get goosebumps. I think all artists, you know, we want to be validated. We hope that everybody likes what we do and stuff,” Turner said. “The fact that people not only come up and gush over the art and point at it and comment and love it and give us compliments, but then when they pull their pocketbooks out and want to buy it to put in their homes, that’s the best.”
When asked about his viewpoint on AI art and how it plays a role in the creative space, Turner said he wasn’t worried about it taking over and replacing traditional artists as a whole.
“It helps artists, but at the same time, if you’re just producing AI-generated art and you’re selling it, I mean, I’m sure there’s going to be a market for it,” Turner said. “And I can’t hate, you know, there’s money out there for everybody. It’s not going to take out of my pocketbook, because I’m a traditional artist, and a lot of people who probably wouldn’t buy AI art, they’ll buy traditional art.”
When asked about diversity and how Twitch could make itself more diverse, Turner voiced for Twitch to have more diversity in their ranks to encourage their viewers and streamers that they do care about their community.
“I think it has to start at the top, and then once it starts at the top, the crew behind it, you know, fill in the blanks, with more minorities and stuff like that,” Turner said. “I don’t know what their ratio is at Twitch, but just being here at TwitchCon, I haven’t met one black Twitch employee. I’m not saying that there’s not any there, but they’re not here at this event.”
According to Zippa, 51% of executives are minorities, with the most common being Hispanic or Latino. 44% of executives are women, with women making up 25% of all employees.
The Latine community makes up 49% of students at City College, with female and female-presenting students making up 53% of City’s students, according to the 2024-25 SDCCD census report.
This story was edited by Nadia Lavin and Briana Bush.
Editor’s note: City Times Media has updated its style guide to standardize the use of the word Chicane and/or Latine when referring to people together who identify as a person from, or whose ancestors were from, a Latin American land or culture. The Associated Press Stylebook recommends using the word Chicano/Latino.
