Upcoming Event

Organic blues and jazz on tap at The Homestead

These cats can play. That will be obvious when Randy Marsh, Clif Metcalf and Lee Heerspink perform at Music On The Mountain July 22. The next show in The Homestead’s music series at the top of Bay Mountain features the threesome, a.k.a. Cat Daddy, performing music that recalls everything from the soul-jazz of the ’60s and ’70s to modern sounds. Music is life for Marsh. If he’s not drumming up a storm somewhere, maybe it’s because he’s put down the sticks to showcase his harmonica playing. Or he’s working on his next gig, whether with Cat Daddy, Big Fun, the Jeff Haas Trio, or one of the many other musical entities he performs with.

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Nancy I. Foster Retrospective exhibition opens at Oliver Art Center

The Oliver Art Center is pleased to host “Threads of a Life”,  a retrospective exhibition of paintings by Nancy I. Foster from July 18 through August 21. A lifelong painter and Oliver Art Center Member Artist, Nancy’s paintings have been exhibited throughout the western and midwestern United States and are held in both private and corporate collections. Throughout the years, Foster has lived and painted in San Francisco, urban Chicago, and northwest Michigan. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, July 18 from 5-7 pm. Refreshments will be served, and all members of the public are welcome to attend.

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Empire Anchor Day Festival returns Saturday—but movie canceled Friday

Empire will holds its annual Anchor Day Festival this weekend, but with a shortened schedule of events, given the shoddy air quality due to the wildfire smoke from Canada and Minnesota. Tonight’s movie at the Township Hall is canceled since the building has no air conditioning and air quality over Leelanau County might not improve until tomorrow. The parade, chicken dinner, and an evening street dance scheduled for Saturday, July 18, are still on. Stay tuned for updates, and click here for a lineup of events.

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Glen Lake Woman’s Club holds Glen Arbor Art Fair

The 54th annual Glen Lake Woman’s Club Art Fair will be held on Wednesday, July 15, from 10 am until 4 pm at the Glen Arbor Township Hall. The Art Fair features artists carefully selected to represent a wide variety of one-of-a-kind art pieces for sale including pottery, painting, textiles, woodworking, and jewelry. Each year, thousands of people shop for that unique piece of art, either for themselves or for a special gift. Some go to their favorite artists’ booths to add to a collection, while others like to peruse vendors new to the Art Fair for a special purchase. The Art Fair is a family-friendly event with a large selection of treasures available across a wide range of price points.

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Arts Center author talk examines a changing Northern Michigan

What happens when a place is so beautiful that everyone wants to go there—and then they stay? That question is central to Leelanau County author Tim Mulherin’s book This Magnetic North: Candid Conversations On A Changing Northern Michigan. Mulherin will discuss why he wrote the book, and the conclusions he drew at the July 11 Coffee with the Authors interview at the Glen Arbor Arts Center. The program begins at 11 am.

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Lake Street Studios launch summer art openings

Just as one exhibit comes down, another rises in its place—a rhythm that defines the summer art season at Lake Street Studios Center Gallery. There is little pause between them, only a seamless moment of transition, where one body of work gives way to the next. In that exchange, a living tapestry of creative work takes shape within Glen Arbor’s arts community. That rhythm was on full display as the series opened with Traverse City-based artist Charles Murphy on June 26. Murphy’s return—his first in roughly a decade—carried the weight of both familiarity and evolution, a reentry forged by years of growth in his practice. Read the story for the entire 2026 artists lineup at Lake Street Studios Center Gallery.

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String Band returns to The Homestead’s Music on the Mountain series

The next Music On The Mountain concert at The Homestead will be a throwback. On July 8, the Blue Water Ramblers will take the stage, performing their mix of traditional favorites in the folk tradition, songs by Woody Guthrie, Tom T. Hall, John Denver and others, along with their own originals. “We come out of the Woodie Guthrie-Pete Seeger folk and bluegrass tradition,” says bandleader R.H. “Bear” Berends.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center holds Youth Plein Air Month

Following a wildly successful inaugural run last year that engaged more than 140 young creatives, the Glen Arbor Arts Center is thrilled to announce the return of the Youth Plein Air Month this July. This unique, month-long program invites children ages 6 to 15 to step outside the traditional classroom and into the fresh air to experience the historic tradition of plein air painting—the practice of painting entirely outdoors. Designed to foster creative confidence, exploration, and a connection with nature, Youth Plein Air Month gives young artists the tools and guidance to translate Northern Michigan’s spectacular landscapes and historic buildings into their own unique artwork.

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Bicentennial Barn holds July 5 open house

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Leelanau residents and visitors are invited to lock eyes with General George Washington, pay homage to the nation’s 250th birthday, and celebrate an historic Leelanau County barn that is now receiving a new round of tender loving care. Scott and Tamara Stone, residents of southeast Michigan who two years ago purchased the Bicentennial Barn on M-22 and Bohemian Road, 7.5 miles northeast of Glen Arbor, will host a rededication open house on Sunday, July 5, from 11 am until 4 pm.

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Readers declaim the Declaration of Independence

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One might wonder why people are gathered at the post office in Glen Arbor on the Fourth of July when it is closed. The story is the same across Leelanau County, in Omena, in Empire, in Lake Leelanau. Then promptly at 10 a.m. the reason is revealed. “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,” booms a voice. “And to assume among the powers of the earth,” says another. “The separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,” continues a third. Welcome to the Fourth of July in Leelanau County, where nine people—one at each post office—read aloud the Declaration of Independence.

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