Topics Related to Women of NC

The North Carolina Arts Council has been working with artists and arts organizations to find ways to recover and build their creative enterprises back stronger after the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in the fall of 2024. Our series Portraits in Resilience has been highlighting artists from the region to discover how they are responding. This month, we showcase Cindy Biggerstaff, of McDowell County. She’s a veteran and a visual artist who has been bringing joy to her community through teaching.

Header image: Sarah Jones Decker. Photo credit: Lauren Rutton, courtesy of Sarah Jones Decker.

Header image: Anna Bryant working in her studio. Photo credit: John DuPre, courtesy of Anna Bryant.Last fall, Hurricane Helene brought devastation to western North Carolina, threatening the state’s culture and economy. Artists affected by the damage are reflecting on their experiences and finding ways to support one another and the community at large as they find their way forward. Art Matters is shining a light on some of these artists. Meet Anna Bryant, the subject of our first profile in a series we’ve titled “Portraits in Resilience.”

Header image: Dare Coulter. Photo by Lauren Lindley Photography, courtesy of Dare Coulter.

To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting some of the extraordinary female artists we have featured in the past. This list represents a small sample of the women who have shaped and continue to shape the arts in our state.  

Photo: Connye Florance by Graham GerdemanThe General Jackson, a modern-day replica of the flat-bottomed steamers of the nineteenth century, has been paddling the waters of Tennessee’s Cumberland River since 1985.

Photo by Sandra Davidson.Today Governor Roy Cooper will officially induct Jaki Shelton Green as North Carolina’s Poet Laureate. In November of last year, Jaki added the music of her poetry to the Oxford American’s North Carolina Song Circle at Fletcher Music Hall in downtown Raleigh. We are happy to share that moment in honor of her special day!

Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten will be posthumously inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame on October 17, 2019.

Photo Credit: Allison Lee Isley/Winston Salem JournalWinston-Salem native Margaret Vardell Sandresky, now 97, continues to play and compose music, following in the footsteps of her grandmother Linda Rumple Vardell, who founded the Conservatory of Music at Flora MacDonald College in Robeson County.

Activism and music go hand and hand for Laila Nur, a founding member of The Muslims, a black/brown/queer punk band from Durham, North Carolina.  Born in Brooklyn, New York, Laila Nur moved south after her family was priced out of the big city. Discrimination and gentrification are realities Laila understands as a queer, black, Muslim woman with working class roots. In the tradition of punk music, Laila and The Muslims channel anger, joy, and hope through the music they make about the place and time in which they live.