If you frequented the Round Up variety show and open mic that played on Thursday nights at the Hayloft Inn on M-72 between 2004 and 2020, you might recognize the new public address announcer’s voice at Traverse City Pit Spitters’ minor league baseball games this summer. That’s Cedar resident Bill Dungjen—a musician, sometime DJ at the WNMC college radio station, former Glen Lake School theater director, and now the baritone in the booth behind home plate.
The Glen Arbor artist community will hold a reception at Lake Street Studios on Saturday, June 1, from 3-6 pm for an exhibition that runs until June 26 with proceeds from all works sold benefiting Beth Bricker, co-owner of Forest Gallery and a pillar of the local artist community who is battling cancer. Beth’s parents, the late Ananda and Ben Bricker, were founding members of the Glen Arbor Art Association 40 years ago. “Beth has always been a champion of the artists in her community, and it is our hope that we, as artists and friends, can send love and support back to Beth and her family in this emotionally and financially difficult time,” the Lake Street Studios friends wrote in a statement.
The Leelanau Peninsula, with its saturated colors and resplendent landscape, has long been a magnet—and perhaps, even a torment—for countless artists. This magical corner of northern Michigan offers a rich, resonating color palette: from the azure blues of Sleeping Bear Bay to the chartreuse fields of Port Oneida to the lavender orchards flanking Center Highway. George Peebles of Grand Rapids is one such artist who has long been drawn to Leelanau County, and who so masterfully depicts its terrain with his vibrant, bold oil paintings. In recognition of Peebles’ enormous artistic talent, the Glen Arbor Arts Center has selected his work, Empire Bluffs, as the image for the annual Manitou Music Poster. Empire Bluffs—like the whole of Peebles’ body of work—is distinctive for its blazing, almost electric color. It is a kaleidoscopic tapestry of sorts. Indeed, the employment of high-octane hues is very much Peebles’ signature. That his work is so deeply color-driven is especially remarkable given that Peebles is colorblind.
First generation cherry farmers are an anomaly in Leelanau these days. As far as Sarah and Phil Hallstedt are aware, the Hallstedt Homestead Cherries was the “last in before doors slammed and prices dropped.” They knew most of the challenges involved with cherry farming in the early 2000s, when they began to look for the right piece of property to start their retirement career as farmers, but at the time it did not deter them. They performed a business case with MSU extension, local growers and fruit distributors from around Michigan. As Phil put it, “We felt we had a good business plan, but that was in 2006. We fell in love with the fruit and the community, and we are just stubborn.” Click here to read Abby Chatfield’s story, which appeared in our April 11 print edition.
Hillary and Matt Voight are proprietors of a new Omena art gallery called V Gallery, which is located in the former Tamarack space and is set to open this May. In 2023, the Leelanau art community entered a void in representation as three prominent art galleries closed their doors. One was Tamarack Gallery, founded by David and Sally Viskochil more than 45 years ago and beloved by art lovers from around the world. “As I walked through the door to meet Matt and Hillary, I knew I was experiencing a unique moment in time, a mere blip between the old guard and the new generation representing art here in Northern Michigan,” writes Abby Chatfield in this story the Sun published in our April 11 print edition.
Glen Lake Restaurant Week, which runs April 26-May 4 and offers diverse culinary options and special prices at restaurants throughout the Glen Arbor region, started with a simple idea proposed by Blu owners Randy and Mari Chamberlain more than a decade ago: why not hold an event in the spring that brings more commerce to the region during the off-season? “I raised my hand, suggested a restaurant week for Glen Arbor, and they nominated me as chairman,” said Randy. “It’s been a nice springboard for us every year. Now we’re nearly fully staffed from Restaurant week through October. It’s been fun to watch the success.” The Chamberlains recently announced their retirement from Blu, effective April 1, with son Brandon taking over as the new owner. Chef Todd M Thompson will manage the kitchen. Thompson and Randy have worked together since the 1990s. Blu reopened for the season on April 12.
Living in Leelanau invites the wearing of many hats, with individuals often finding themselves sitting on multiple boards, working more than one job, or filling numerous needs throughout our small communities. Many of the most successful businesses also operate in this way, meeting multiple needs under one roof: the coffee shop that is also a music venue, the vintage store with the art club, the restaurant with an inn above. At one such multi-functional establishment—Farm Club—writer Mae Stier sat down to talk with Elijah Nykamp, who is himself a wearer of many hypothetical hats. Owner of the clothing studio and shop Nykamping in Suttons Bay, Nykamp is the designer and sewist of all the clothing he creates. Not only does he design and create beautiful, wearable pieces, he is also a community builder, frequently partnering with other artists.
March is maple sap month. Britton Wheeler, a 15-year-old ninth grader at Glen Lake School, makes and sells maple-coated cashews under his brand Northway Maple Company from syrup he harvests and boils on his parents’ property near Cedar. This is Britton’s third year making maple syrup and coating cashews he buys wholesale. The name for his project was partly inspired by his great grandfather’s soda shop, Northway Bottling Co. Britton, who can sell at local farmers’ markets, hopes in the future to use a commercial kitchen and sell his maple-coated cashews at local stores.
Leelanau County has long been a haven for artists and creatives, and the region is rife with individuals, businesses, and organizations working together towards common goals. For Kelsey Duda, co-founder and creative director of Fernhaus Studio, a hospitality group based in Traverse City, the region’s creative culture and collaborative community was a large part of what drew her to move to northern Michigan in 2020. In the three years since, the hospitality group has taken over Riverside Inn in Leland, Outpost (formerly Brew) in Traverse City, and perhaps most notably, restored The Mill in Glen Arbor, opening it in the spring of 2023 as a cafe. This summer, Fernhaus opened Millie’s in Glen Arbor, a pizza and ice cream shop where Riverfront Pizza was previously.
John Farah, a longtime dentist in Ann Arbor who lives part-time at The Homestead in Glen Arbor, has published a memoir about his journey from Jerusalem to Michigan. He’ll hold a book reading and signing for “Imagine: A Palestinian Journey” on Feb. 2 in Ann Arbor. Farah wrote most of the book during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I started it to let my kids and family know about my journey,” he said. “A Palestinian growing up in Israel, sympathetic to Jews suffering in Europe and always feeling because of their history they will do the right thing towards Palestinians.”