This Regional Artist Project Grant is a program of and supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources. It is awarded to qualifying individual artists with funds from Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Jackson and Macon Counties and matching funds from the North Carolina Arts Council.

Awarded artists were selected in a competitive scoring process by a panel of artists and administrators representing counties in the consortium. This year, requests totaled more than $11,000, and the panel was able to award $6,000 in grant funds. Congratulations to the following artist winners, who received either full (six artists) or partial funding (two artists) for their work:

• Melissa Bennett – Haywood County: metal sculpture

• Carol L. Conti – Macon County: visual arts

• Norma Hendrix – Macon County: visual arts

• Kelley Jakelis – Clay County: visual arts/photography

• Gregg Livengood – Haywood County: diptych sculpture

• Julia McRae – Macon County: music

• Lindsey Solomon – Haywood County: photography

• Holly Turner – Haywood County: clay

The Regional Artist Project Grant program provides the opportunity for regional consortia of local arts councils to award project grants to artists in their regions. These grants support professional artists in any discipline and at any stage in their careers to pursue projects that further their professional development. 

About the program, Leigh Forrester, executive director of the Haywood County Arts Council, explained, “We are thrilled to help administer this program with the NCAC and other counties in our consortium. I was excited to see a great variety of applications this year, but there is always room to grow — it’s very important to me to make sure each year we help new artists in different areas of our region.”

Applications for the 2019-20 grant season will be made available in late summer or early fall of 2019. Announcements will be made at www.haywoodarts.org/grants.