Story Circle

Welcome to the Inaugural Edition of the Story Circle!

We’re thrilled you’re here! Look for the Story Circle in your inbox every month, with several ways for you to get involved and shape this community. Lots to share this month!

Arthenia’s Voice

Each month we’ll share from the literary legacy of our inspiration, Dr. Arthenia Jackson Bates Millican.

Stories Carry Power When Shared in Physical Space

In a 1975 interview with her long time friend and colleague, Jerry Ward, Arthenia spoke about how “stories carry power when shared in rooms, spoken aloud, performed with bodies and breath.”

Not just words on a page. Or images on a screen. But stories shared with deliberate intent, conscious presence and “performed with bodies and breath.” That’s the opportunity we’re experimenting with in the feature story below and the December 11 multi-genre performance debate event.

Sumter High School students will perform stories and debate aloud the power of digital art and traditional art, surrounded by original paintings in the main gallery of the Sumter County Gallery of Art. Join us for this one-of-a-kind, provocative event.

Feature Story

Digital Art vs. Traditional Art: What if Winning Doesn’t Matter?

When was the last time you stood in front of a painting that stopped you in your tracks?

The average teenager spends seven hours daily consuming culture on screens—scrolling through TikTok art videos, streaming concerts, discovering new artists on Instagram. But when did they last feel a live performance resonate in their chest, or lose themselves in front of an original work? This isn’t a judgment. It’s a genuine question our community needs to explore together.

These questions matter right now.

Join Us for an Event That Will Challenge How You Think About Art

The Sumter High School Speech and Debate Team

Millican Arts is sponsoring the Sumter High School Speech and Debate Team for a public community conversation exploring the deeper questions behind digital art vs. traditional art.

Students will debate whether digital platforms have democratized and enhanced cultural experience or diminished something essential about how we connect through art. From Steve Jobs’ revelation about how calligraphy shaped computers to the timeless myth of Echo and Narcissus, the evening weaves traditional debate with spoken word poetry, storytelling, and performance to explore a radical idea: maybe the answer isn’t choosing between digital and traditional art, but discovering what becomes possible when both forms transform each other.

This is the essence of the reimagined Millican Arts mission.

We Celebrate Every Form of Expression

Every expression, every story, every voice matters—no matter the medium or venue.

We celebrate all forms of artistic expression. But we also believe something happens when human beings gather in physical space around art, a resonance that can’t quite be replicated on a tiny screen.

Can you truly experience Beethoven through earbuds, or does something essential require shared space, live sound, collective breath?

This debate isn’t about declaring winners.

Why This Debate Matters Beyond the Students

It’s about equipping young people to think critically about how they experience culture and what they might be gaining or losing in the shift from embodied to digital experience.

And here’s what makes this powerful: this conversation isn’t just for students—it’s for all of us wrestling with these same questions as parents, educators, artists and community members. Because every story matters, and the way we experience those stories matters too.

Help Us Invest in Young Cultural Leaders

Here’s where you come in.

Help us bring the entire Sumter High School Speech and Debate Team into the Millican Arts community by sponsoring student memberships. This is how we build a generation that thinks deeply about art, culture, and human connection—not just consumes it passively. Your support invests in young people’s cultural literacy and critical thinking, making events like this possible.

“Our students are very excited to showcase the skills they’ve been developing as orators and debaters in their first year of competition,” said Joshua Miller, Debate Team advisor. “They’ve put in so much hard work and effort to prepare for competitions and we want to share their talent with our community on such an important and timely topic.”

This matters right now, and we’re addressing it together.

Millican News

Millican Arts Participates in Sumter eSTEAM Festival

The new Foundation made its first public appearance at the eSTEAM festival on October 4 in downtown Sumter. We led kids through a storytelling exercise to start writing their own stories in our blank journals. We also handed out branded bookmarks and beaded bracelets. Maybe that’s how you joined this newsletter. 

Millican Arts volunteers at the foundation’s booth at the Sumter eSTEAM Festival on Oct, 4: Randall Ruffin, Greensboro, NC; Dr. Shaftina Snipes, Charlotte, NC; Marsha Stopa, Brevard, NC; Lorraine Jones, Rick Jones, Sumter, NC; Barbara Gamble, Raleigh, NC.

Upgraded “Whose Story Is It?” Curriculum Now Available

Two educators, Dr. Shaftina Snipes and Elisa Morelli, spent six months revising the middle-school curriculum to meet national and North Carolina educational standards. It can now be included in public, private and charter school curriculums. Based on the story “Little Jake” from Arthenia’s book “Seeds Beneath the Snow,” the curriculum invites students on a powerful six-week journey into the world of theatre, where performance becomes a pathway to self-discovery, empathy and community connection.

Our goal is to introduce “Whose Story Is It?” to schools regardless of their budget situation. Sponsorships equip us to do that. Explore sponsorship levels on our Support Page.

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Twice in the News!

The Sumter Item published an article about the Foundation at eSTEAM and the Charleston Post and Courier published a piece about Millican’s new initiative. Check them out!

Exhibition Sponsor at the Sumter County Gallery of Art

Millican Arts is proud to be a sponsor of two current exhibitions, “Natalie Daise – Garden Stories” and “TAYSK: The Artists You Should Know.” Both exhibition runs through January 9.

Known for her role on Nickelodeon’s “Gullah Gullah Island,” Natalie Daise is an artist and storyteller who explores themes of African heritage, community and Black identity through her paintings and projects. Through her art and community performances, Daise celebrates Blackness, family and the sacred in everyday life, echoing the themes that ground the Millican Arts vision. The exhibition runs through January 9.

From left, Ron Daise, Natalie Daise, Lorraine Jones and Rick Jones of the Millican Arts Foundation, a sponsor of the exhibition.

TAYSK features multi-disciplinary artists like Ruby Chavez, a self-taught Atlanta artist inspired by her diverse family background; Keith Tolen, a painter known for his colorful pointillism series “One Million Dots;” and Tennyson Corley, a recent clay artist creating whimsical ceramic animal characters with storytelling flair. These artists explore themes of community, creativity, and expression through their unique mediums and perspectives, highlighting the universal power of art to connect and reflect diverse experiences and backgrounds.

New Membership Community Launched!

The Foundation has officially launched an affordable membership plan that allows anyone who shares our vision of a world where every story matters to support our growth and community. Eight membership levels ranging from Student ($10) to Community Patron ($2,500) ensure everyone can participate at a level that works for them.

There are also six sponsorship levels for individuals and companies who believe in investing in cultural philanthropy, including an Underserved Community Sponsorship to provide memberships to students and families who might otherwise be unable to participate.