Entries by editor

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The things they carry: exploring the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s VESSELS exhibit

The Glen Arbor Arts Center’s current VESSELS exhibit offers an out-of-the-box look at bowls, baskets, urns, pods, and other objects that store and carry things. This juried exhibition is on display until Oct. 27 and features 28 exhibitors from Michigan, California, Illinois, and Rhode Island. Of particular note, the exhibit includes the Creation of the World 6/9, a needlework tapestry from Judy Chicago’s “Birth Project”—a feminist initiative from the early 1980s, in which Chicago collaborated with more than 150 artists to create dozens of images combining painting and needlework that celebrate various aspects of the birth process; from the painful to the mythical. This series celebrated the birth-giving capacity of women along with their creative spirit. With women’s reproductive rights under siege, and the arts reemerging as a forum of social and political expression, we chatted with the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s gallery manager Sarah Bearup-Neal about VESSELS and the inclusion of a work from “Birth Project.”

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Sleeping Bear Dunes holds “Find Your Park” After Dark star parties this fall

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has announced the next two Star Parties this fall. Join park rangers and astronomers from the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society (GTAS) on Saturday, September 24, from 8 to 10 p.m., at the Dune Climb parking lot for the next Star Party of the 2022 series. Highlights will include the harvest moon (the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox), the planets Saturn and Jupiter, as well as star clusters, nebulae, and other deep-sky objects later in the evening.

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“Thar she rows!”

On Saturday, Aug. 27, at 7:20 a.m., a whaleboat—the likes of which hunted the world’s largest mammals in the mid-1800s in the North Atlantic Ocean—left the public dock in Glen Arbor as its crew rowed, then sailed across the Manitou Passage. The crew’s goal was not to catch a whale but to reach North Manitou Island. Leelanau local Pam Houtteman spotted the crew at the dock and took photos. She took down captain Shane Brosier’s phone number in order to send him the images, but when she asked for his name, he offered the famous opening line from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, “Call me Ishmael.”

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Bird sanctuary just part of Charter’s obsession

For some, birding is an engaging activity. For others, observing and helping our feathered friends is a passion. For Kay Charter, it’s a self-described obsession. “I had an epiphany three years after moving into our home,” said the founder of the non-profit Saving Birds Through Habitat. “I saw a winter wren. It’s the Mozart of the bird world.” Saving Birds Through Habitat is a haven for thousands of birds. “We’ve lost more than 30 percent of our birds. Songbirds and shorebirds are the ones that have taken the hit,” she says.

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From Michigan to Finland and back

In this essay published in our late August edition of the Sun, Empire native Jessica Sharry reflects on moving from Northern Michigan to Finland and back, on practicing yoga, on immigration, on food, and on nature.

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An international Labor Day in Glen Arbor

The hard-working international staff at Anderson’s Market in Glen Arbor paused on Aug. 19 to pose for a team photo. Standing in the back row are (l-r) Britnie and Annalisa (Jamaica) and Sabina (Kazakhstan); in the middle (l-r), Clint (U.S.), Kerem (Turkey), Francis (Dominican Repubic), and Rahma (Tanzania), and in the front (l- r), Filiz and Yeşim (Turkey), owner Brad Anderson, and Karina (Kazakhstan). Photo by Jamie Cline

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Cottage Book Shop: a perfect gig for this English major

In early October last year, I stopped by the iconic Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor to introduce myself—a local author whose book is carried there—and to sign copies. Entering the historic log cabin is literally a mood-altering experience. The open door beckons bookworms young and old. Inside, it’s chockful of books and sundry novelties, its walls notably displaying color-popping Greg Sobran prints of area landmarks. Indeed, Cottage Book Shop is the epitome of cozy.

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Reflecting on a Manitou solitaire with the endangered piping plovers

Back in early July, on a windy Sunday, I woke before sunrise at the southern end of North Manitou Island and headed out onto the beach for the day’s work. There at Dimmick’s Point, a broad wing of dunes and wave-turned stones reaching out into the Manitou Passage, we find the largest nesting concentration of Great Lakes piping plovers in the world. Roughly a quarter of the population nests on the island, with another quarter nesting just across the passage. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is home to nearly half the breeding pairs of this endangered shorebird. At Dimmick’s Point, four days a week during nesting season from May to August, I walk the beach and monitor the plover activity. The point is closed to park visitors during that time, so I am typically the only human among the birds.

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Second-generation farmhand delivers grapes, workers, tortillas

Consider Tomas Moreno a matchmaker for Leelanau County’s migrant farmworkers. The soft-spoken, good-natured Texas native and Leland Public School graduate with family roots in Mexico manages 54 vineyard acres north of Lake Leelanau for Bel Lago and French Valley wineries. He interprets for and leads a crew of Hispanic farm workers, indispensable to the harvest, some of whom arrive in northern Michigan on H-2A temporary work visas. Tomas, who turns 41 next month, also recently began making fresh tortillas with his wife Julieta to sell to the local Latino community.

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Glen Arbor Players hold “Anatomy of a Murder” auditions

The Glen Arbor players have scheduled two rounds of auditions for their new play, “Anatomy of a Murder.”

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