Lake Street Studios launch summer art openings

Photo: Charles Murphy’s show opened June 26.

By Katie Dunn

Sun contributor

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.

Return: Charles Murphy

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.

Murphy has shown at Center Gallery several times over the years, including 1999, 2008, 2009, and most recently in 2015, making this his fifth exhibition with the gallery and placing him among its longer-standing artists.

“Charlie is a seasoned painter who is greatly loved by the arts community and by students that he has taught,” says Allison Stupka, gallerist and co-owner of Center Gallery with her husband, Harry Fried. “We were so happy to kick off our summer with his work—he is such a warm and generous painter, teacher, and human. His work is finely rendered and light at the same time. He and his paintings are gems.”

Murphy’s exhibition brought together a body of work that felt both expansive and deeply energized. The show included 31 pieces spanning oil, acrylic, and watercolor, underscoring both his versatility and the prolific nature of his practice. While there was not a single unifying theme, a clear throughline emerged in the work’s vibrancy and in Murphy’s steady attention to composition. Many of the pieces leaned into familiar northern Michigan imagery, particularly built forms like barns and shoreline structures, which appear not as strict representations but as reinterpreted. Watercolors embellished with gold leaf were especially striking—adding a luminous, almost kinetic quality to the work.

Murphy describes himself at heart as “more of a studio painter.” Across oil, acrylic, and watercolor, he selects materials in direct response to the subject matter rather than adhering to a single fixed method. That responsiveness shapes the work on view, where each piece feels considered not only in its imagery, but in how it is ultimately rendered.

In this particular body of work, Murphy acknowledges that it is informed by Paul Klee (1879-1940) and Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). In his fluid handling of watercolor, there is a kinship with Klee’s balance of structure and suggestion. Klimt’s presence is most visible in Murphy’s use of gold leaf, where surface luminosity makes light itself a part of the composition.

Murphy’s influences extend beyond the historical; they are also regional and relational. Murphy situates his artistic practice within a broader sense of belonging among artists in northern Michigan. “As artists I believe we are all seeking ‘our tribe,’” he shares. Reflecting on the idea of “tribe” that emerged in his post–art school years, he describes how conversations with artists in the region affirmed that sense of community. “Upon visiting northern Michigan and speaking with many artists in the area, I realized that place was here in a vast community of artists,” he says. He adds that his connection to the region has become lasting: “It has proved to be true that my place and tribe was in the Grand Traverse area.”

Summer 2026 Lineup

Murphy’s meditations on finding his “tribe” among artists in northern Michigan echo broadly in the structure of the summer program itself, which reflects a deliberate balance of continuity and renewal. Alongside Murphy, returning artists include Joseph Lombardo, Margo Burian, Jeff Condon, Jessica Kovan, and Ruth Kitchen. The season also introduces new voices: Kathleen Conover, Chelsea Garter, Andrew Jagniecki, Jill Hunt, Darcy Bowden, and Debra Howard. Taken together, the group forms a dynamic interplay of established presence and fresh perspective—each contributing to the evolving identity of Center Gallery.

Arrival: Kathleen Conover

Kathleen Conover arrives this season as one of the series’ new voices. Raised in southern California and now based in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, her introduction to Center Gallery came, fittingly, through the same network of regional artists that sustains the community. While visiting painter and Empire-based artist Mark Mehaffey at a Friday night reception, she encountered the gallery’s opening-night atmosphere firsthand, describing it as “an exciting, energy filled crowd of art patrons, creatives, and art enthusiasts of all makes.”

A full-time mixed water media painter, Conover moves between watercolor, acrylic, gouache, graphite, charcoal, pigment sticks, and ink. She describes watercolor as “my first love and main medium,” and her practice is rooted in the northern Michigan landscape. She explains her approach as an effort at “marrying the fluidity and spirit of watercolor with my personal interpretation of my environment.”

Now exhibiting within the same Friday night series that she first experienced as a visitor, she says, “I’m thrilled to be a part of the Friday night reception tradition.”

Continuity: Joseph Lombardo

For Lombardo, consistency defines his presence in Glen Arbor—he embodies continuity within the Center Gallery summer series.

He first exhibited with Center Gallery in the summer of 2010, following an artist-in-residence experience with the Glen Arbor Arts Center (GAAC) in 2008 and the early connections in the community that grew out of that time. “I have shown with them every summer since, only missing summer 2020 due to COVID,” he notes.

From there, Lombardo’s summers in Glen Arbor settled into a steady pattern of teaching, exhibiting, and returning each year. “I stay in Glen Arbor for two short weeks in July,” he explains. “I teach a plein air painting workshop with GAAC the first week. My exhibit opens on Friday of my first week up north.”

“It’s an honor to have had the opportunity and to be accepted as a part of the Glen Arbor art community,” he says.

The history of Center Gallery

Center Gallery’s origins trace back to 1983, when Suzanne Wilson, the mother of Stupka, joined Ananda Bricker and Midge Obata in transforming an unlikely space—a modest, dilapidated garage—into a veritable hub for artistic exchange. What began as a simple act of reclamation and imagination grew into a working compound of studios, with Wilson’s atelier at its center.

In the early 1990s, that creative mission evolved even further when Wilson began organizing Friday night art openings at Center Gallery. The idea was disarmingly simple: on Friday evenings throughout the summer, the doors would open to the public, unveiling a new body of work by a featured artist.

Stupka recalls that Glen Arbor–based artist, Greg Sobran, was the first artist to be featured at these summer openings. My mother, Kathleen Dunn, showed her pastels and oil paintings at the Center Gallery Friday night openings several times during the 1990s.

David Westerfield

Glen Arbor–based artist David Westerfield is also part of the gallery’s pantheon of Friday night artists. He exhibited his work there in 2013. A highly regarded figure in the regional arts community, Westerfield now owns and operates Arbor Gallery on the west side of Glen Arbor. Reflecting on his earlier connection to Center Gallery, he recalls the significance of that first invitation:

“I remember the Center Gallery reception being a very enjoyable evening—a great community get-together. Being invited to show there was a compliment to my work and gave me confidence and energy to pursue my passion for painting.”

For Westerfield, the region’s artistic strength is shaped as much by its people as by its landscape.

“Glen Arbor has to be one of the best art communities in Michigan,” he says. “With all the galleries and the art center, there are a lot of opportunities here for artists. The beauty of the area naturally brings artists, but the fact that so many community members support the arts—and recognize the value of what we have here—keeps the art scene vibrant. The fact that Center Gallery has been around so long is a testament to that.”

At the helm

The legacy—and longevity—of Friday night openings has been masterfully sustained over the decades by Stupka, a continuation of the vision first articulated by her mother.

“My mom usually made a postcard which announced the lineup of artists. A tagline on one of them reads ‘wine, sometimes music and always good conversation.’ As a steward of this place for now 23 years, that line resonates with me. It’s a place where on Friday nights you can sip some wine or sparkling water, look at some new art and take a breath, think and talk to other people,” Stupka shares.

She reflects on unexpectedly assuming leadership of the gallery after her mother’s untimely passing, and the responsibility of continuing what had become a deeply revered community space. “When the dust settled, I did know that I didn’t want to say goodbye to that wonderful community of art lovers and artists she’d been a part of.”

The work, she notes, is never without its challenges. “Walls, roofs, heaters need to be fixed or replaced, raccoons suddenly come out of the attic on pieces of insulation, printers jam. Life happens!”

What endures, she suggests, is the shared experience and discovery that continues to animate the gallery.

“That thread of fun, that astonishment at what people can create, that feeling of talking with other people about what they see and experience—it’s such a joy to steward this,” she says. “I recently read a line in a book, Properties of Thirst, that read ‘you can’t save what you don’t love.’ That feeling in the gallery—that’s what I’m lucky to be part of and that’s what I want to keep going.”

Sustaining that spirit week after week requires both direction and exacting attention to detail, much of it carried by Christine Deucher, gallery manager. Deeply attuned to both artists and process, she is an indispensable presence in the rhythm of the season, moving between curatorial conversations and the meticulous work of preparing each Friday night opening.

“Three indomitable artists [Wilson, Bricker, and Obata] who saw in an old automotive building on Lake Street a place that could be a home for artists—I have been here for the last nine years and have been lucky enough to see that dream in its fruition,” Deucher says.

Community Response

The Friday night openings have become more than events. They are a ritual, a gathering point where art and community intersect in ways both quiet and affirming.

The openings draw a steady stream of first-time visitors and seasonal guests. Tourists and passersby are often pulled in by curiosity. Music frequently threads through the space as well—sometimes a scheduled performance, other times the loose, impromptu sound of a guitar drifting through conversation. In this way, the gatherings expand beyond a fixed audience, becoming part of the town’s broader summer circulation.

Reliably in attendance is a devoted group of local art supporters, among them Kathy Cornille and her husband, Jeff Annatoyn; Jane McSherry Cline; Jim Frixen; Angela Saxon and Royce Deans; Gary and Pam DeCoker; Gary Cozette and Joe Lada; Laura Cavender; and Mary MacDonald. The list extends well beyond these names, a clear indication of how genuinely communal and widely celebrated these art openings are.

For those who return year after year—not as artists, but as part of the audience—the series holds its own kind of significance.

Cornille, an avowed aesthete, shared her insights on their appeal and resonance.

“We like going to the openings for two reasons,” Cornille says. “To connect with people in the community who support the arts, and to support the artists—some familiar to us, some not—and learn about their work. We’re also aware that public art not only enriches the individuals experiencing it, but also helps invigorate the surrounding area, with real economic and cultural benefits for the community at large.”

Sunset: Ruth Kitchen

As the season moves toward its final weeks, that sense of shared presence carries through to its closing exhibition.

In late August, the season will conclude with work by Kitchen, marking a return to an artist who first showed at Center Gallery in 2024. “I hadn’t really thought about being the last show of the summer,” she says, noting that she plans “a series of small sunset paintings for the show.” Looking at the work in that context, she adds, “I guess my show is the ‘sunset’ for the season—kind of corny!?!”

She also contemplates the long arc that brought her back to the gallery, describing how she has “visited the gallery countless times over many years,” and how it has “always been a stop on visits to Glen Arbor probably for as long as they have been open.” As the final Friday night opening of the summer, her exhibition sits at the end of a season defined by both returning artists and new voices—an idea she captures simply in her appreciation for “having established and… emerging artists exhibit at the gallery.”

Between those two points—opening and closing, return and arrival—the gallery’s 37th season unfolds as it always has: one exhibition at a time, each building on the last. Taken together, they form something larger than any single show: a layered, evolving portrait of a place, its artists, and the community that continues to gather around them.

“We have a responsibility as a ‘legacy’ gallery to keep alive the idea of our founders of supporting artists and art. We love our opening nights with the artist there for people to meet. We want to be a Friday destination where people come together to celebrate art and all it brings,” Deucher says.