Jaki Shelton Green is the Poet Laureate of North Carolina. She also serves as the poetry editor for Walter magazine and as the Poet Laureate in residence at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Jaki teaches documentary poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and is the 2021 Frank B, Haynes, writer in residence at UNC Chapel Hill.

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Avery is the Founder and Head Baker of Manresa Bread in California. With five locations in Southern California, Manresa is a spin-off project from California's Michelin-starred Los Gatos Restaurant. Avery trained in baking at the French Culinary Institute in New York.Manresa was a 2020 James Beard Finalist.

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Kennedi Carter is a visual artist with a primary focus on Black subjects. Her work highlights the aesthetics & sociopolitical aspects of Black life as well as the overlooked beauties of the Black experience: skin, texture, trauma, peace, love and community. Her work aims to reinvent notions of creativity and confidence in the realm of Blackness.

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Victoria has been a professional artist creating portraits, paintings and sculptures over a long and illustrious career. Most recently, she unveiled “She Wouldn’t Take Off Her Boots” North Carolina’s First Women’s Holocaust Memorial Monument. This sculpture honors the strength and resilience of all women.

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Lyda is the Creative Director and Co-Founder marketing communications agency Tigermoth Creative. Lyda is described as a visual weaver of stories. Her vision is the underpinning of what brings words and images to life. She interprets a client’s vision and to make sure the written and visual content of every project comes together in a consistent and compelling way.

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Betty is the Global Vice President of Design for Lee. She has spent her career creating, reimagining and building brands, working in both luxury and mainstream apparel design. Betty previously designed for Aerie, Abercrombie, Old Navy and Nike.

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Artist, Ashley Vanore, has turned a life-long passion for drawing, art, and interiors into a full-time career.
From abstracts to landscapes, figures to faces, Ashley uses oil paints applied with palette knives, brushes, and rags to “sculpt” her paintings. Each piece is a combination of methodical calculation and happenstance. While her work can usually be characterized by colorful palette combinations, each piece is uniquely created. Her paintings can be found in commercial and residential applications across the US and Canada.
Ashley is also the founder and curator of the Grandover Art Gallery. The North Carolina gallery showcases the work of North Carolina’s fine artists.

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Singer, Songwriter and Guitarist Abigail Dowd grew up under the longleaf pines in the Sandhills region of North Carolina.
Known for her storytelling and command of an audience, Abigail has been called a
"writer of the highest caliber”.
Her soulful voice and unique classical guitar style combined with the edgy bass of Jason Duff caught the attention of Acoustic Guitar Magazine, which described the album “Not What I Seem”: “The guitar-driven introspective folk of the 1970s [as] a touchstone, but so are blues and roots rock ’n’ roll.”
Pulling from her heritage of storytelling and determination, Dowd weaves hints of Celtic melodies with the soulful gospel of the south to create a sound that dances between folk, rock and blues.

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