MIllican Arts Story Circle: October edition!
Welcome to the October edition of Story Circle!
We’re honored to share the story of an amazing emerging artist. And we’ve been busy busy! Grants, salons and two milestone anniversaries for the Foundation!
Arthenia’s Voice
Each month we share from the literary legacy of our inspiration, Dr. Arthenia Jackson Bates Millican. This month, the words are about her. They come from “A Promise Worth Keeping,” an essay Rick Jones wrote in 2004 about a promise he made to his Aunt Arthenia and how it changed his life. We included it in the keepsake booklet on the Foundation’s history.
Two passages from it still guide him:
Feature Story
Healing is Not a Straight Line
While Sarah Aldridge was locked in a room for eight years, art was her lifeline and salvation. Today it’s still her lifeline but also her future.
When the man who locked her in a room wanted to hurt her, he went after her drawings – tore them up, burned them. He knew her art was the only thing she had.
Ask her how she feels about that today and the answer comes fast: “He can’t touch it.”
Aldridge is now 27. Until last year, she had never shown her work to anyone. When she set up a table at Under the Cover bookstore in Sumter this summer and offered her art for sale for the first time, seven pieces went home with people before the day was out. Online she posts on Snapchat and TikTok as ibitebarbies, an account name that means what it sounds like.
“When I was little – the rubber legs on the old Barbies – I liked to chew on them,” she said. “I just thought it was cute, funny, fit me.”
The room
Aldridge was 15 when she met him. What followed was a sad and horrible story – eight years behind a door that locked from the outside, with no phone, no internet and no way out. She was assaulted. She got away at 22.
She had been drawing since she could hold a pencil. She got in trouble for it at school, the way most artists do, but was never serious about it, she says, until there was nothing else in that room to be serious about.
“I didn’t have nothing else. I was just sitting with four walls around me,” she said. “I used my imagination. I created her.”
Her is the green-haired girl.
The cast
The green-haired girl is Aldridge’s darker side and has no name. Neither does the pink-haired girl who turns up beside her, all brightness and bubbles. Aldridge created both of them inside that room and brought them out with her, and they have been shapeshifting with her ever since.
The green-haired girl got a makeover when Aldridge came home. That is when the bandages appeared, and the stitches and the enormous skeletal smiles. “The healing,” she said. “And the smiles, trying to be happy, or being happy.”
Then there is the Shadow Man, a dark figure who appears again and again at the green-haired girl’s side. Viewers tell Aldridge he frightens them but she sees him differently.
“He’s a protector,” she said. “If you were to see all of the things I made about him, he has a personality. He’s a very sweet, protective entity.”
“People think he’s scary, but he’s not.”
The point of the discomfort
“Scary” and “uncomfortable” are words Aldridge hears often about her online work. She is not troubled by either one.
“I’m making you feel something, one,” she said. “And two, that’s kind of the point.”
Her colors run warm. She likes stripes. She draws people, mostly, and mostly she draws emotions, anger and despair primarily, wearing somebody else’s face. Sometimes a finished image arrives in a dream and she wakes up and paints it.
She discovered about a year ago she is partially colorblind. Magenta does not register at all. Her blues look gray to her and her greens look blue, which explains years of people remarking on her subdued palettes. Aldridge calls digital work with its full-color wheel a blessing.
Coming out
The world Aldridge returned to at 22 was not the one she left at 15. Smartphones everywhere. A pandemic had come and gone without her. For a while she wanted to escape back to the room.
“I tell everybody I’m like a Martian,” she said.
She had to relearn how to speak, having gone years without doing much of it. For months she caught herself asking her mother for permission to use the bathroom.
Her boyfriend of nearly two years bought her an iPad and told her to draw again. He is the reason the work went online, and part of the reason it eventually got to the table in the bookstore, where she stood behind her paintings and watched people look at them.
“They didn’t really say much when they first came up,” she recalled, “but I could tell on their face. Almost like a twinkle.”
Seven of them bought something. Months later that still surprises her.
“Sarah Aldridge is an incredibly talented artist. Her dreamer’s soul is reflected in her artwork,” said Sharlene Shuler, owner of Under the Cover bookstore. “Truly one of the nicest people to have an event at our store.”
Other things have come back, too. She rediscovered her favorite color is yellow and she likes jewelry. She goes outside and notices the flowers, and she is not being cute about it.
“I touch the grass and tell it good morning.”
What comes next
Aldridge is finishing her GED and plans to go to college to become an art teacher. She wants to learn animation, which she says takes forever when it’s just her, alone in the zone. She’s become an advocate against domestic violence.
She is also working on a painting of the room that depicts the corner where she slept on a mattress. It belongs to a series she has been building, every painting from the beginning to now, meant for a future exhibition.
But Aldridge has an even bigger goal than that. She wants her work in a New York City gallery, and she has wanted it long enough that at 13 she gave herself a stick-and-poke tattoo that reads NEW YORK CITY.
“I’ve been so hidden away and silenced,” she said. “So what is the opposite of that?”
Because every story matters
Asked what story she hopes her art tells, Aldridge thought about it for a long moment. Her first answer arrived before the question was finished.
“Healing is not a straight line.”
She struggles a bit with the question of what she would tell someone making art alone right now and afraid to show it, because she knows she was that hidden artist for years.
“Why not?” she said. “Why wouldn’t you? What’s stopping you?” Then, quieter: “I wish I showed it sooner.”
“Art is made to be seen.”
You can follow Sarah on Tiktok, on Snapchat and on YouTube.
Sarah Aldridge is the first artist to enter a signed artist agreement with Millican Arts, which will be helping her market and promote her work.
Millican News
Millican Arts Celebrates Two Important Anniversaries
Over the past 30 days, we quietly crossed two significant one-year milestones in our journey.
September 8 marked one year since Millican Arts Foundation was officially recognized as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. And October 4 marked the one-year anniversary of our eSTEAM Festival launch in Sumter, South Carolina. It was a pivotal moment that ushered in a new brand, vision and mission for bringing arts, education, storytelling, technology and human flourishing together.
It’s remarkable to think about how much we’ve overcome and achieved in just one year transforming ideas into tangible results. Millican’s second year is already off with a bang. We continue to imagine the possibilities as we continue pressing forward, “Because Every Story Matters.”
First Baptist Legacy Stories Initiative
Millican Arts’ partnership with the First Baptist Missionary Church to create the First Baptist Legacy Stories Initiative has expanded to include the Sumter Museum and the West End Community Association.
The initiative will bring intergenerational storytelling, youth leadership and community legacy preservation to the church community. The long-term vision is to establish the First Baptist Missionary Church Digital Legacy Library, a growing collection of oral histories that preserves the voices, experiences and legacy of the church for future generations in keeping with the Millican Arts motto “Because every story matters.”
Launching Millican House Historic Preservation Committee
One of the Foundation’s primary goals for 2027 is to have Arthenia’s 1912 Sumter home included in the South Carolina Historic Properties Record (SCHPR) and registered with the National Register of Historic Places.
It was her dream to have the house used as an arts conference center and meeting space, exhibition space, small performance and event venue and to host artists-in-residence. Achieving national historic designation would bolster fund-raising efforts to restore and preserve the home.
Volunteers are needed to help with historic research and applications as well as hands-on work on the property. If you’d like to volunteer email Millican@MillicanArts.org and we’ll get back to you quickly.
Harmonious Brand and Prototype Take Shape
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Harmonious is a next-generation Learning Management Ecosystem (LME) that helps organizations design, deliver, measure and continuously improve learning and human development experiences. Development continues on an interactive prototype that shows how the platform can serve a range of audiences, from arts education to organizational wellbeing. Millican Arts Executive Director Rick Jones is meeting regularly with prospective clients and investors as the platform moves toward launch.
Millican Salons are Building Human Connection One Evening, One Room at a Time
Facilitated by hosts Bob and Carol Warner, Millican Salons are private gatherings with good company, good food, and a safe space to say what’s on your mind. No agenda, and no assigned topic. Just what you bring. Did you know that the American Revolution was born in Paris salons?
Two personal reflections from the July Salon
Rick Jones, Millican Arts Executive Director
Joshua Miller, Sumter High School Speech and Debate Coach and new Millican Arts board member
Sponsor and Partner Recognition
We thank and welcome these partners, sponsors and new members to the Millican Arts family!
MEMBERS
We thank Elisa Morelli for becoming one of the first Founding Members of Millican Arts with her generous gift.
We thank Jennifer Dotson for her gift.
Grants
Grant contract signed with the Minnesota Department of Education
Our partner, The Happiness Practice ™, signed the grant contract Sept 30 after months of red tape, persistence and anticipation. This 15-month state-level initiative runs through September 2027 and addresses educator burnout upstream by strengthening emotional capacity, relational wellbeing, leadership practices and healthier school cultures through The Happiness Practice™.
Millican Media, the for-profit technology and production affiliate of Millican Arts, has an important role in bringing the work to life through Harmonious, our Learning Management Ecosystem (LME), by providing the digital infrastructure for the initiative.
We’re excited to contribute to this worthwhile initiative.
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$20,000 Grant Awarded for Collaborative Cultural Arts Initiative
A South Carolina philanthropic organization has awarded Millican Arts a $20,000 grant that will be used to kickstart a collaborative and cooperative calendar and newsletter project for Sumter cultural arts organizations. Additional funding is being sought to fund the first year with January 2027 targeted for the premiere newsletter.
Foundation Seeks Additional $30,000 Grant for Sumter Arts Table
Millican Arts continues its grant funding efforts for the Sumter cultural arts newsletter initiative (above) and has successfully submitted a $30,000 Central Carolina Community Foundation grant letter of intent (LOI) application to complement the $20,000 seed grant the Foundation has received. Additional grant funding would help Millican Arts to expand the scope, leverage the initial investment and reduce the financial contribution required from each participating arts organization, including Millican Arts. Grant applicants will be notified by late October if they are invited to round two of the process.
On the Horizon
Millican Salon on October 29
The next Millican Salon is from 6-8 PM, October 29 at Under the Cover Bookstore, 9 South Main Street, Sumter, SC, 29150. If you’re interested in attending contact Rick at MillicanArts@MillicanArts.org.
Millican Circle Evening
The first Millican Circle will be held Saturday, December 12, for paid supporters of Millican Arts. Details are being finalized but the intimate evening gathering will open with a surprise guest artist performance!
Plan to join with Foundation board members, artists and partner organizations to celebrate what Millican Arts has accomplished this past year and share in our future plans.
Mark your calendar for December 12 and watch your email for an invitation.
Not a paid member yet?
Fall Fundraising Campaign Launching with Keepsake Booklet
Millican Arts will launch its fall fundraising drive with a full-color keepsake booklet. It traces how our predecessor, the AJBM Literary Foundation, preserved the work and legacy of Dr. Arthenia Jackson Bates Millican beginning in 2008. It also follows the 2025 launch of the reimagined Millican Arts Foundation and where we’re headed. Watch your mailbox for a special package in the next few weeks.
Board to Meet for First Retreat
The Millican Arts Board of Directors will meet in Sumter for its first annual retreat on Friday, December 11, to plan funding and programming initiatives for 2027.
Get Ready for the 4th Millican Festival
Plans are under way for the 4th Millican Festival in June or July 2027 in Sumter, South Carolina. We’ll send you a “Save the Date” notice as soon as we have the keynote speaker and headline artists booked. It’s coming back!
Millican Arts Will Only Be As Strong as the Community that Supports It
Millican Arts goes where the stories are — into classrooms, communities and the lives of people whose voices deserve to be heard.
A Storykeeper helps keep the work alive. A Seedkeeper helps it take root.
Join with us to keep the movement in motion.
The Story Circle is the official newsletter of the Millican Arts Foundation.
Look for the Story Circle in your inbox every month, with several ways for you to get involved and shape this community.
