Fall For Art in Leelanau
By Sarah Bearup-Neal
Sun contributor
Fall For Art in Leelanau (FFA) is a self-guided tour of the peninsula’s galleries. Now in its ninth year, FFA takes place over the Columbus Day weekend (Native Peoples’ Day), Oct. 10-12, and for good historical reason.
“There was a time when people really didn’t come up here (after the summer),” said John Huston, FFA’s front man and co-owner of the Glen Lake Artists Gallery. “We picked Columbus Day weekend because it’s a good color tour time and a long weekend. Now, they do come. There are more people visiting (in the autumn) all the time.”
FFA 2014 is Oct. 10-11, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Oct. 12, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The event’s mechanics are simple: pick up a brochure at any of the participating galleries, visit all the participating galleries (you’ll know them by the yellow “Fall For Art” window sign), see art that will (possibly) astound/amaze you, ask the gallerist or artist to sign your brochure, bring it back to Lake Street Studios, 6023 S. Lake St., Glen Arbor. FFA ends with a drawing of art donated by the galleries. It begins at 3 p.m. in Center Gallery at Lake Street Studios.
One might say Leelanau County is cheek-by-jowl with artists and galleries. This anecdotal assertion is hard to shore up with firm numbers (there’s no Ministry of the Arts tracking these things). So, for the purposes of this discussion, let’s just say there are a lot of both.
“Leelanau County is an inspiration to artistic people,” said Heather Caverly, owner of the downtown Empire Sleeping Bear Gallery, a FFA stop. Caverly rattles off a laundry list of natural features that lure artists to Leelanau County: the water, the terrain, the color, the atmosphere.
The same artist-bait seems to work on people who do not practice the visual arts, but who might be interested in seeing them and the people who make them. This is Cultural Tourism: the movement of people away from their home turf to other place where their cultural needs can be satisfied. Before the term “cultural tourism” achieved a certain conceptual familiarity, there was FFA walking the talk, offering an annual opportunity for visitors to the region to talk with artmakers in their own ecosystems (i.e. in the studio).
“People don’t know much about Leelanau County except for the (Sleeping Bear) Dunes,” opined Michelle Hart Jahrus, a painter who shares studio space in Cedar with metalsmith Liz Saille. Jahraus and Saille’s gallery, Duck to Swan, located in the heart of Cedar’s art district, is one of the FFA stops. “This weekend is a chance to learn there’s a lot more to Leelanau.”
And to see real art made while you watch. John Huston, a potter, will have his wheel set up in front of the gallery. Over at Duck to Swan, every day is demo day.
“We’re always painting. We’re always making jewelry,” Saille said. But are she and her studio mate ready to welcome visitors and their curiosity and their questions into that work space over the FFA weekend? You betcha, she said.
“Oh, we love to talk,” Saille said. “Maybe not always about art. Sometimes we like to talk about our dogs.”
For more information about Fall For Art in Leelanau, call the Glen Lake Artists Gallery, 231/334-4230; or visit Fall For Art in Leelanau’s Facebook page.
