Glen Lake Artists Gallery finds new roots
By Marc Boissoneau
Sun contributor
At nearly three decades old, the Glen Lake Artists Gallery is among the area’s longest-running galleries. Now, after 24 years in the same building, it has moved to a new location between Lake Street Studios and the Glen Arbor Art Association.
“The location was a pretty easy choice,” says Amy Stevens, who owns the gallery with her husband, John Huston. “We looked at a couple different locations around town, but they weren’t by other artists, and we thought it was important to be by other galleries. So even though this building didn’t have the square footage we wanted, it had the location we wanted.”
“We kind of refer to this as the art district of Glen Arbor,” Huston says. “We have four galleries, the Art Association, and the Thread Shed.”
“We’re renting from Lake Street Studios, and they’re so happy to have us here. Now there’s not a break from one gallery to the next,” Stevens explains.
“And a lot of the Manitou Music Festival happens right outside,” Huston adds, “so really it’s the arts district.”
Despite the modest size of its new building, the gallery retains a roster of about 15 artists, all from Leelanau, Grand Traverse and Benzie Counties. Most are year-round residents, though a few stay in the area only in the summer.
“Over the years that the gallery’s been here, we’ve had over 100 artists’ work,” Huston says. “Almost all local artists, at one time or another, have been in this gallery.”
Among the artists currently featured are five painters, three of whom have pieces featured in a book on the art of the Sleeping Bear Dunes compiled by Barb Siepker, which will be released in August, accompanied by a show at the Dennos Museum Center in Traverse City.
“We’re really proud of that,” Stevens says. “We think it indicates the quality of our artists.”
Perhaps as a result of the artists’ localness, Stevens and Huston say that the concept of place is key to many of the pieces they exhibit. “We’ve got paintings of Cedar Swamp, Good Harbor, Whale Back,” Stevens says as she looks at the wall behind the gallery’s cash wrap. “People really enjoy that when you’re in your office in Chicago in winter, you can look up and see Good Harbor or Pyramid Point.
“The art here is mostly representational,” Huston says. “It’s not abstract or …”
“Cutting-edge or trendy,” Stevens continues. “Plus, John’s a potter, and I’m a jeweler, and I work with paper. So the other part of the business is hand-crafted gift items.
“People say, ‘I have my morning coffee every day in this mug John made, and it just reminds me of the time I spend up North.”
Such personal connections are what make the gallery exciting for Huston and Stevens. “It’s a really great feeling to sell something [you’ve made] to someone,” Stevens explains, “because there’s that personal connection, and you know why they’re buying it. I don’t know if I can really explain that to someone who’s not an artist or a maker — John and I think of ourselves more as ‘makers’ — but it’s a good feeling to know someone wants something you had a lot of pleasure creating.”
“We have so many things in our lives that are manufactured, that come from far away in a factory, and are just objects. When people buy an object and meet the person who created it, it creates a sense of community that I think is really missing from our world.”
In its previous location, the gallery held openings, but since the new location is too small to allow such events, Huston and Stevens will instead hold art parties Fridays in July and August, featuring a different artist each week. “Center Gallery has an opening every Friday, as does the Art Association, so this will be the place to be on Friday nights,” Stevens says.
The gallery is located on Studio Lane; signs from the road’s intersection with Lake Street direct customers to the building.
“We don’t have any plans to leave Glen Arbor soon,” Stevens says of the move, which was necessitated when their lease on their previous location expired. “I mean, we’re not that old yet! This is what we do.”
