Carolina arts need your investment

The brilliant (and controversial) French artist Edgar Degas drew, painted, and sculpted. Although he relished a wide range of subjects, his best-known works depict ballet dancers.

“Art is not what you see,” Degas once observed, “but what you make others see.” He used the term in its broadest sense, to include not just the arts he mastered but those of the dancers he painted, the musicians he knew, the writers he admired.

North Carolina has a long and fascinating tradition of artistic expression and appreciation. One of our oldest surviving works, the intricate petroglyphs carved into Judaculla Rock near Cullowhee, date back more than a millennium. John White, founding governor of Sir Walter Raleigh’s doomed “Lost Colony,” captured his initial impressions of Roanoke Island and its indigenous residents in watercolor sketches now preserved in London’s British Museum. For centuries, North Carolinians of varied backgrounds and interestsproduced pottery, beadwork, jewelry, embroidery, and other pieces that still retain their power to impress, impart, and inspire.

In the performing arts, too, our state has been a leader. The first professionally staged drama penned by an American was “The Prince of Parthia,” completed in Wilmington by Thomas Godfrey in 1759 and produced nearly a decade later in Philadelphia. Wilmington is also the home of one of the oldest theatrical companies in the country. Founded in 1788, the Thalian Association Community Theatre stages regular productions at the city’s Thalian Hall, built in 1858.

I write not to rehearse North Carolina’s artistic history but to encourage today’s generation to contribute to it. Public institutions have a role to play, but neither state grants nor local appropriations will ever supply more than a fraction of what the arts require to thrive.

Some succeed as purely commercial endeavors, of course. Publishing, music, and film are big businesses. Other arts with high costs and narrower (but still substantial) audiences are best housed within nonprofits. On average, ticket sales and other earned income comprise about 60% of annual revenue for such organizations, with private philanthropy supplying 30% and government 10%.

These shares vary by sector and size. For example, a 2025 survey of community theatres across the country found that nearly two-thirds have annual budgets below $250,000 and most receive either no government funding or grants counted in four figures, not five or six.

The charitable organization for which I serve as president, the John William Pope Foundation, has been supporting the arts since its inception in 1986. One of our statewide initiatives, named after John Pope’s wife and philanthropic partner Joy, offers $100,000 a year in grants to local groups needing to upgrade their facilities or pilot new programs.

In 2026, there are five recipients of Joy W. Pope Memorial Grants for the Arts. The Lenoir-based James C. Harper School of Performing Arts provides high-quality musical and performing arts instruction. The Mitford Museum & Discovery Center, also in Caldwell County, will use our grant to upfit its exhibit space and recording studio. The Smoky Mountain Community Theatre in Bryson City will refurbish its electrical and HVAC systems, walls, flooring, seats, and stage.

Another grantee, Junior Appalachian Musicians, offers after-school training in traditional instruments such as fiddle, banjo, and guitar to students in a swath of western North Carolina counties. And on the other side of the state, the Wilson Arts Center will use its Joy Pope grant to build out class and studio space as well as facilities for theatrical rehearsal and scene construction.

Arts groups don’t just need institutional grants. They need individual gifts, attendance, and volunteers. Don’t be shy. Jump in with both feet.

“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake,” said Kurt Vonnegut. “Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward.”

As will we all.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy and American history.