For years, Mary Beth Boone imagined creating an artist book inspired by Green Hill Cemetery. With support from an Artist Support Grant, the Greensboro artist transformed that long-held idea into something tangible.
More than 135,000 people attend the North Carolina Folk Festival each year, bringing energy — and significant economic activity — to downtown Greensboro. The impact reaches restaurants, hotels, shops and other businesses throughout the city.
But an event this big doesn’t happen by accident.
I met a professor who worked with bioluminescent bacteria — living organisms that glow on their own through a chemical reaction. He told me he had drawn a heart for his wife using bioluminescent bacteria. If you can draw a heart in bioluminescent bacteria, I thought, you can draw anything.
The North Carolina Theatre Conference benefitted from The ACGG’s sustainability cohort — and shared those lessons with members across the state.
After decades as a working artist, I’ve come to realize that creative careers are often shaped by moments that seem small at the time.
For me, one of those moments happened as an art student at UNC-Chapel Hill, when my professor, Carla House, told me, “You have a voice. You need to go with it.”
An exhibition featuring cardboard is changing more than perceptions of an everyday material. It’s changing who walks through the gallery doors.
Strong communities need strong arts organizations. But strong arts organizations don’t happen by accident.
Behind every exhibition, concert, festival, and performance is a team making hundreds of decisions that determine whether it can continue serving its community — not just this year, but for years to come.
Most of us see cardboard as something to recycle. John Gibbs sees possibility.
During the pandemic, surrounded by shipping boxes like everyone else, the Greensboro sculptor and painter began experimenting with cardboard. Not as packaging, but as sculpture. What started as curiosity became an entirely new body of work.
The Greater Greensboro community invested more than half a million dollars in the future of creativity this year, contributing $554,798.71 to The Arts Council of Greater Greensboro’s 2025–2026 ArtsFund campaign. The total represents a 24% increase over the previous fiscal year.
I have always believed that the most meaningful things we build are not buildings or programs, but communities.
Growing up in Medellín, Colombia, I was a competitive swimmer and water polo athlete with the Colombian National Team. Sports taught me discipline, resilience, and the power of teamwork. They also taught me something I carry with me to this day: People thrive when they feel connected to something larger than themselves.
