The Beautiful Project

✨ Introducing The Allison Ranelle Brown Fellowship ✨

Created in honor of our champion, mentor, and forever advocate, The Allison Ranelle Brown Fellowship is a 6–12 month opportunity for Black women and nonbinary practicing teaching artists to build visionary work in partnership with The Beautiful Project. Fellows teach within TBP’s youth pipeline while leading a special project rooted in our mission of advancing the representational and healing justice of Black girls and women.

We are deeply honored to name Dr. Gina Loring as our inaugural Allison Ranelle Brown Fellow 🤍

Dr. Loring’s work will be designed to cultivate confidence, empowerment, and self-agency through locating and magnifying the voice.

This fellowship exists because of Allison. As we wrote in 2020:
“There aren’t enough words to say, exactly, how well she loved us. And how fiercely, clearly, she fought for us.”

Allison believed in us wholeheartedly and fought for the resources that allowed TBP to grow, dream, and employ Black women artists. Her love is woven into everything we build.

Allison Brown, you remain our champion.
Gina, we are so proud to walk alongside you.

✨ The legacy continues. ✨

To learn more about our fellowship and Allison’s contributions, please visit our website @ www.thebeautifulproject.org/fellowship

As we step into a new year, TBP is taking a moment to reflect on all that we were grateful for in 2025. At the top of that list is a deeply heartfelt thank you to the brilliant young artists in our community who generously volunteered their time and energy to help curate exhibitions alongside our team.

From digging through storage, hauling materials, and organizing artwork, to , , , and hanging work, creating labels, and making food runs. To every practitioner bringing offering to our community altar. To our community partners inviting us in to spread the word and mission of TBP. To every orator speaking up about their experiences, bravely sharing what matters most to them as Black people navigating complex lineages & to for guiding us through those kinds of difficult conversations. To & ‘s mentorship, ’s constant encouragement, ’s beautiful documentation of the processes, and everyone’s creative minds coming together to bring our exhibitions & programs to life. Every single contribution MATTERED. Our volunteers & contributors are truly the lifeblood of our organization. Without you, this work simply would not be possible.

This collective effort pushes us to think more intentionally about how we show up for our creative communities in Durham and beyond. How we can create space for Black creatives to deepen their understanding of art and history, expand their skills, and find meaningful opportunities to grow and advance their craft.

As we move forward together in 2026, we want our entire community to know how grateful we are and how committed we remain to building spaces where you can continue to thrive. So to every contributor, attendee, teammate, helpmate, artist, friend, and volunteer who has shown up for us over the past 20+ years: thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

We can’t wait to share what we have in store for the year ahead!!

Are you subscribed to The Beautiful Project’s Newsletter??

Our team has been hard at work this season to update y’all on all things Beautiful! First of two uniquely designed & very special issues! Dropping this coming Monday just in time for the start of Durham’s Black August.

Changes, transitions, shifts, gifts, celebrations and so much more!

If you haven’t signed up yet, check the link our bio or visit our website to sign up!

Last week, The Beautiful Project was invited to New York City to celebrate the sunset of the Collaborative for Creative Practice and Social Justice at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This day of guided exhibition tours, art making events, panel discussions, youth poetry, & a rooftop gathering not only gave our team the opportunity to reconnect with collaborators from our Pen, Lens, Soul exhibition that was held at The Met in 2019/2020, but also gave us the chance to hear from “dynamic nonprofit arts and culture leaders who shared insights and challenges on navigating the arts and culture field amidst change and uncertainty within our sector.” Discussing the collaborative approaches they
are taking to serve their communities gave us a deeper insight to the work we all have moving forward as a collective and in turn cultivated more Beautiful connections with our partners & friends in NYC!

Special shoutout to panel moderator Rob Fields & speakers Alicia Hansen , Maria Ponce Sevilla , & Bob Wilms for their groundbreaking work and depthful insights to the battle ahead.