Painters from across Michigan and the Midwest will converge on Glen Arbor, August 1-3, for the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s 11thPlein Air Weekend. This annual event is highlighted by three outdoor painting competitions that offer participants both daytime and sundown events; and two exhibits of original work.
Registration is open for Historic Sleeping Bear’s 10th annual Port Oneida Run/walk on Saturday, Aug. 3, at the Port Oneida Farms Heritage Center/Olsen farm. Three races to choose from include the Tiller’s 10K, Homesteader’s Hilly 5K, and the Farmer’s Flat and Fast 5K, plus the Kid’s ¼ mile Schoolhouse Dash.
Martine MacDonald is an award-winning artist in paint, printmaking, drawing, and mixed media, and teaches at Wayne Community College. The Detroit native lives in Allen Park and is a frequent visitor to Leelanau, where she reconnects with family, friends, and artistic inspiration.
The topic of housing in Leelanau County––and the lack of affordable housing––is one that seems to come up often for those who live here. Among my peers––entrepreneurs and workers in their late-20s to early-30s––housing discussions are often filled with a bit of discouragement.
You can pretty much read the story of Josh Miller’s life on the back of his Subaru. It is plastered with decals for ski gear companies, and that has been his passion and then winter occupation for 44 of his 47 years. But then your eyes track downward to the license plate: PORKRST, and you recognize the meat master, grill-meister, and talented chef that is Josh Miller for the rest of the year. The way he manages to balance two jobs is typical of so many workers who are the year-round residents in this seasonal feast or famine land of Leelanau.
Rove Estate is the dream made possible by Creighton Gallagher of the Gallagher family, which has farmed in Leelanau and Grand Traverse Counties for multiple generations, and McKenzie, his wife and partner and a Gallagher for 10 years’ now, who brings her entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen to the project.
On Monday, July 29 at 6 pm, Leelanau County local Anne-Marie Oomen and several other contributors to the Michigan Notable Book, Elemental: A Collection of Michigan Creative Nonfiction, will read their essays aloud and sign copies of the anthology at Leland Township Library. The book includes essays from 23 of our state’s most well-known writers, including Oomen, who also won a Michigan Notable Book award for her book The Lake Michigan Mermaid: A Tale in Poems this year.
May Erlewine is a contemporary folk singer and songwriter based in Traverse City whose pastoral, socially conscious music has won a sizable and growing following throughout the Midwest and beyond. Erlewine performs on Lake Street Studio Stage as part of the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s Manitou Music series on Sunday, July 28, at 8 pm.
An historic wind storm ripped through Leelanau County in early August 2015, leveling acres of woodland, forest, and residential structures.The broken remains of sheds, docks and other wood structures provided the raw materials for two young entrepreneurs to turn destruction into construction. Siblings Bella and Zack Pryor talk about the small business they created on July 21 at 2 pm at the Glen Arbor Arts Center, 6031 S. Lake St., Glen Arbor. This program is open to public at no charge.
June swelled Lake Michigan by another 4 inches which is bad news for Megan Grosvenor Munoz, whose family owns and operates Manitou Island Transit. The company ferries passengers on pleasure tours to the Manitou Islands out of Leland. This spring and summer, they’ve had to cancel four or five trips, Munoz says, “because we can’t get people on South [Manitou] safely” due to water splashing over the dock on the island.”