Appointed by the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, the Arts Commission Advisory Board consists of 15 Orange County citizens over age 18 who help to steer the commission’s future and provide suggestions to the BOCC on arts & culture issues. The advisory board meets the 2nd Monday of each month (except for December) at 6:30 pm, alternating between the Eno Arts Mill in Hillsborough and Peel Gallery in Carrboro.
ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS
Anita Mills, Chair
Crystal Wu, Vice Chair
Linda Williamson, Secretary
Sean T. Bailey
John Claude Bemis
Krista Bremer
Fred Joiner
Saba Jordan
Lindsay Metivier
Marc Miller
Josh Rosenstein
Gideon Young
Click here to view the 2023 Meeting Schedule and meeting archives.
ABOUT US
Anita Mills, Chair
Anita Mills was born in Lubbock, TX in 1952. She attended public school there, eventually earning a BFA in Ceramics and Printmaking from Texas Tech University. After completing her MFA in Studio Art and Art History from the University of Texas at Austin in 1977, she took a teaching position at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. During her 12 years at St. Cloud, she taught all levels of design, drawing, painting, printmaking, theory of art, and “Women Artists: An Historical Survey.” She concluded her tenure there as Chair of the Art Department. A resident of North Carolina since 1989, Anita currently lives near Hillsborough where she maintains her home and studio. She is a full-time artist and teaches adults and young adults through workshops and courses offered in community education settings.
Dr. Crystal Wu, Vice Chair
Crystal, a pianist, teacher, and collaborative artist, has been committed to the arts from an early age, filling her time with piano, violin, and ballet lessons. Her love for music never faltered as she went on to earn her BM in Music Performance from UNC-Chapel Hill where she was a recipient of the prestigious Kenan Music Scholarship. She continued her studies and received a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance and a Doctorate in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from the University of Georgia. Returning to Chapel Hill in 2019, she currently serves as the marketing and development communications manager for Arts Everywhere at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she strives to share, promote, and amplify all the wonderful arts opportunities in the community.
Linda Williamson, Secretary
A long time Orange County resident, Linda currently lives in the western part of the county with her husband and son. She lived in Hillsborough from the 5th grade through her college years at UNC-Chapel Hill. At Orange High School, Linda was very active in the theatre program and carried this passion to UNC where she double majored in theatre and mathematics. After finishing her undergraduate degree, Linda completed a year-long internship as company manager at Playmakers Repertory Company. She also completed an internship as company manager at the NC Shakespeare Festival in High Point, NC before attending the University of Cincinnati where she completed a Masters in Arts Administration at UC College Conservatory of Music, and a Masters in Business Administration from UC Lindner School of Business. While there, she worked at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and was a founder of a community music series. Though she changed from being an art administration professional to working in the corporate world, Linda is still an arts patron and enjoys all the arts available in Orange County. She is excited to help support the Orange County Arts Commission in its mission to promote and strengthen the artistic and cultural development of Orange County, NC.
Sean T. Bailey
Sean Bailey is a photographer and print maker currently living in Hillsborough, NC. His innate desire to study and understand the world’s natural and cultural complexities led him to degrees in zoology, anthropology, and a doctorate in genetics & molecular biology. Sean is a strong advocate for learning and conserving traditional light sensitive printing techniques. He is thankful to serve on this board and looks forward to opportunities that build life-long relationships between artists and their communities.
John Claude Bemis
John Claude Bemis is the award-winning author of seven books for young readers including The Wooden Prince (Disney-Hyperion) and The Nine Pound Hammer (Random House). He was selected as North Carolina’s Piedmont Laureate for Children’s Literature in 2013 and received the Excellence in Teaching Award from UNC-Chapel Hill for his work as an author-educator. He leads writing workshops and story consultations for adults, kids, and teens. John is also a visual artist and songwriter who performs with his band Hooverville. He lives with his wife and daughter in Hillsborough. johnclaudebemis.com
Krista Bremer
Krista Bremer is a published author and also associate publisher of The Sun, a Chapel-Hill based literary magazine that goes out to about 70,000 subscribers around the country. She has taught memoir at the Center for Documentary Studies and has organized panel discussions at Flyleaf and elsewhere in the county. For the past twenty years, Krista has been steeped in literature locally and nationally. Her writing has won a NCAC Arts Fellowship and she has served on the committee to select future recipients. Krista’s work has also won a Pushcart Prize, a Rona Jaffe Award, a Breadloaf scholarship, and other accolades.
Fred Joiner
Fred Joiner is a poet and curator living in Carrboro, NC, where he currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Carrboro. His work has appeared in Callaloo, Gargoyle, and Fledgling Rag, among other publications. Fred is a two-time winner of the Larry Neal Award for Poetry and a 2014 Artist Fellowship Winner as awarded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. One of Fred’s poems won the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art’s Divine Comedy Poetry Contest, in response to Malian artist Abdoulaye Konate’s textile work. Most recently, Fred was selected as one of 13 recipients of the Academy of American Poets’ inaugural Poets Laureate Fellowship.
Saba Jordan
Saba Jordan is a Visual Artist born in Santiago, Chile. His work has been exhibited in the U.S. and Canada, where he lived for a decade. He holds a B.A. in Sociology from York University. Saba is a strong believer in the power of the Arts as an essential aspect of a healthy and vibrant community. He is grateful to be part of this board and views this as an opportunity to create meaningful relationships, while supporting the growth of underrepresented Artists in the Triangle area. Saba’s work can be viewed at Peel in Carrboro, NC where he currently resides.
Lindsay Metivier
Lindsay Metivier is a photographer, an educator, an independent curator, and a gallerist based in Carrboro, North Carolina. She holds a BFA in both Photography and Art Education from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA in Studio Art from UNC-Chapel Hill. From 2011 until 2021 Lindsay owned and directed a gallery called Aviary in Boston, Massachusetts. Lindsay recently opened an art space (called Peel) in Carrboro, North Carolina. Peel is part gallery, part digital photo lab, part art book store, part gift shop, and also a community event space. Her work has been exhibited widely, most recently at Lump Gallery, Block Gallery, Oneoneone Gallery, The Nasher Museum at Duke University, The Ackland Art Museum at UNC-Chapel Hill, The John and June Allcott Gallery, The Front Gallery, and Transmitter. Her work has been featured on The Heavy Collective, Humble Arts Foundation, and A New Nothing.
Marc Miller
Having acted, stage managed, and swept the floors for numerous theatre companies for about 50 years, Marc now welcomes the opportunity to support the arts and the community in Orange County. In the 1980s, he was a member of the Actors’ Coop of NC, based at the ArtsCenter. Moving to Boston, he co-founded Fort Point Theatre Channel, an arts-collective centered on performance. Also in Boston, he was active in the Fort Point Arts Community, Inc., as a board member and Gallery Committee chair; in 2020, Boston Magazine selected the gallery as Best in Boston. Today, he volunteers with the Hillsborough Arts Council’s Gallery & Gift Shop and serves on the board of the Friends of the Orange County Library. An award-winning writer and editor for his day job until retiring, he has written on theatre, economic opportunity, health care, human rights, history, and technology policy.
Gideon Young
Gideon Young is a member of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective and the Carrboro Poets Council. A Fellow for A+ Schools of North Carolina and a stay-at-home dad, his debut haiku collection my hands full of light was published by Backbone Press (2021). His poetry is included in Best Spiritual Literature 2022 (Orison Books) and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find recent work in Callaloo, Our State Magazine, and The Heron’s Nest. Awarded a 2023 Arts in Education Artist Residency Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, discover more at www.gideonyoung.com.
