50 for 50 with Joseph Bathanti

photo by Mathew waehner/ncdcr

photo by Mathew waehner/ncdcr

“I write to tell the truth, to be a better person.”
— Joseph Bathanti, former North Carolina Poet Laureate
 
 
 
 

50 for 50

50 artists celebrate North Carolina

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Joseph Bathanti is an educator, arts advocate, and award-winning writer who's helped tell the story of our work for years. As a Literature Fellowship award recipient, as our former Poet Laureate, and as a leader in arts programming with military communities, both his personal writing and public arts outreach manifest the mission of our work: to nurture and promote arts for all. We invited him to write about his work, and our relationship to him, in this special 50 for 50 interview. Find it at the link in our bio. Photo by Mathew Waehner.
The A+ Schools - North Carolina Summer Conference is officially underway! A group of teachers from across the state is being trained in our whole-school reform model that views the arts as fundamental to teaching and learning in all subjects. At the end of this week, seven new schools will be added to the A+ School network.
This year Cynthia Hill and Vivian Howard won an Emmy Award for their show A Chef’s Life. Cynthia’s documented North Carolina stories for more than two decades and is growing her Durham-based production company Markay Media. We asked her how our state can better support artists and she said: We asked filmmaker Cynthia Hill how our state can better support artists and this is what she said: "Valuing it more. The resources are limited, and that’s always been [a] big frustration for me. Understanding how intricate art and artists are to the success of a community and a state is really important. You are out there talking about economic development and trying to woo companies to come and be a part of North Carolina. Having that art community is a big draw, and artists need support so that we do have assets to offer to our own communities." Find her full interview at the link in our bio! | Photo by: Kevork Djansexian / Getty Images North America
From A Chef's Life to a recent series on Hendrick Motorsports' NASCAR team, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Cynthia Hill is known for documenting North Carolina stories. In 2002 she co-founded the Southern Documentary Fund to support southern storytellers equally committed to documenting life in their region. It was the first step in her ongoing journey to make our state a celebrated documentary hub. _____________________ "We weren’t respected outside of the region, and we weren’t respected in the region," says Cynthia on that time in her life. "There was this thought that if you were talented you wouldn’t be here. You would be in New York or LA. Because we stayed here, because we WANTED to stay here, because the stories we wanted to tell were here, we were looked down upon. We were making — and I was told this on many occasions — local stories with a little “l.” I started saying, “We’re making local stories with a big L.” Every film is local. Every story is local. It just depends on what your local is. If you’re making a story about Brooklyn, that’s local. But for some reason that has more of an appeal than making something about Pink Hill, NC. Why? If it’s a good story, it’s a good story no matter where it is." _____________________ Learn more about Cynthia at the link in our bio. Photo by Blaire Johnson
Cynthia Hill is one of North Carolina's most important filmmakers. Creator of the Emmy Award-winning television show A Chef's Life, Cynthia's body of work is as diverse as the team she's building in her growing production company Markay Media. In brand new 50 for 50 interview, she reflects her unlikely journey to film-making and her dream of making our state a celebrated documentary hub. Check out her story at the link in our bio. | 📸 by Jeremy Lange
 
 

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