JUNE Member of the Month

Diane Sulg has enjoyed an active role in the arts for more than forty years. Her involvement began as a volunteer for the Visiting Artist Series in the Quad Cities of eastern Iowa and western Illinois along the Mississippi River. In 1985, when the organization was challenged financially, she organized one of the first Festival of Trees in the country. That event has raised millions of dollars for the arts over the past thirty-eight years.

Within three years, Diane was selected to lead a new arts organization, Quad City Arts, which combined the Visiting Artist Series, the Arts Council and two festivals. As Executive Director Diane managed a staff of seven who presented more than 300 annual performances by nationally known artists. She led the reconstruction of a vacant department store in Rock Island, Illinois to be the Quad City ArtsCenter, which contained two galleries as well as office and meeting space. She was an avid grants writer to the Iowa and Illinois Arts Councils as well as the NEA. One of the grants resulted in a public arts program, Face the River, and several large public art installations.

When she and her husband moved to North Carolina, they opened Maddi’s Gallery in Charlotte, and then a second gallery in Huntersville. The galleries specialized in fine craft as well as her personal passion, Southern Folk Art. In 2009, Maddi’s Gallery was honored by Niche Magazine as the Top Retailer of American Craft in the country.

Today, Diane is Executive Director of CRAFT, a non-profit trade association of galleries and artists specializing in handmade American craft. She is a speaker and trainer developing artists for the wholesale trade. She also a writes two columns in Sunshine Artist magazine.

Diane and her husband Madis love to travel and collect art. Diane regularly spends her free time painting with acrylics and watercolors. She applauds Mooresville Arts saying “local arts organizations are a vital force for creating a dynamic community, and I am thrilled to be part of it.”