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Mary Fortuna’s Tree of Life

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The Tree of Life is one of the most universal, recurrent, and enduring of all iconographies—a visual metaphor for the interconnectivity of life forms, Earth and the cosmos. Its legacy stretches across religions and cultures. It appears throughout literature, the arts, and even modern science. This ancient motif now graces the Lobby Gallery of the Glen Arbor Arts Center. It is the mixed media installation of Traverse City artist, Mary Fortuna, aptly titled: Tree of Life: Connecting the World. The exhibit will be shown through April 25. Fortuna’s Tree of Life: Connecting the World is a glorious rendition of this most recognizable of images. It is comprised of the tree form itself, which is drawn in Sumi ink on Japanese paper, affixed to which are numerous hand-sewn soft sculptures—a snake, armadillo, turtle, fox, and bee, among other critters.

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A batch of happy thoughts—Glen Arbor Arts Center explores happiness

“Happy.” How exactly is happiness defined? Is it a simple proposition or a complex notion? Is happiness something objective or something entirely subjective? Is it completely nebulous? Happiness can be the view from atop Pyramid Point; the June harvest of Bardenhagen strawberries; chasing the Northern Lights out at the end of Bohemian Road; volunteering at Leelanau Christian Neighbor’s weekly “Blessings in a Backpack;” driving Leelanau County’s back roads, like Schomberg—just because. The Glen Arbor Arts Center is interested in how artists relate to, and creatively express, the notion of happiness. The GAAC’s very first exhibit of 2024 will explore happiness, and is, fittingly, titled “Happy.”

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Glen Arbor Arts Center hosts wellness retreat

How can creativity help one navigate the experience of caregiving for other humans? The Glen Arbor Arts Center’s HeARTful Care: Nurturing the Caregiver’s Soul Through Art is the second in a series of Creative Wellness retreats focused on increasing wellness through art practice. This retreat occurs on Saturday, Nov. 11, from 9 am-5 pm at Pine Street Studios, next door to Glen Arbor Arts Center.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center hosts Moran, theater discussion, art gardens

Ann Arbor fiber artist Susan Moran will use her Glen Arbor Arts Center residency to begin a body of work “specifically inspired” by Leelanau County. Using photographs and sketches of mosses, fungi, and rock surfaces, Moran plans to create a series of hand-dyed, printed and stitched textile collages. She will talk about her project during a public presentation on Sept. 22 at noon, at the Glen Arbor Arts Center. The presentation is free. Click here to learn more about this and other upcoming GAAC events.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center hosts late summer events

Massachusetts artist Ian Kennelly will use his Glen Arbor Arts Center residency to “further his observations” of the ephemeral space that exists where water, land and sky meet. Kennelly will talk about his project during a free public presentation on Friday, Aug. 25, at noon, at the GAAC, which also bids farewell to summer with a Front Porch Concert on Aug. 25 from 5-7 pm. The Arts Center also hosts Sarah Shoemaker for a Coffee With the Authors event on Aug. 26, a A guided walk-and-talk of “In Translation” on Sept. 2, and a screening of the film “Plague Phase” on Sept. 7.

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Writing the books she’d want to read: a conversation with Sarah Shoemaker

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Novelist Sarah Shoemaker of Northport has been an educator, university research librarian, world traveler, wife, mother, and grandmother. She recently spoke with the Sun about her most recent books, Children of the Catastrophe (2022) and Mr. Rochester (2017). Shoemaker will appear at the Glen Arbor Arts Center on Saturday, Aug. 26, at 11 a.m. for “Coffee With the Authors.” Other events this fall can be found on her website, SarahShoemaker.net.

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Celebrating forty years of Glen Arbor arts

The Glen Arbor Arts Center (previously called the Glen Arbor Art Association) celebrates 40 years in 2023. We republished this excerpt from the Arts Center’s website that recounts the organization’s history, beginning with its founders, Becky Thatcher, Ananda and Ben Bricker, Midge Obata, Suzanne Wilson, Richard and Barbara Sander, and Barbara Siepker.

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Manitou Music series hosts Drummunity, Sarah Shoemaker

Percussionist Lori Fithian brings her collection of hand drums and percussion instruments to the Manitou Music series on Saturday, August 19, from 1-3 pm at the Glen Arbor Arts Center. Then on Aug. 26 at 11 am, the GAAC continues Coffee With the Authors, a live, conversational interview with local and regional authors about the writing craft and process. Next up is novelist and “Children of the Catastrophe” author Sarah Shoemaker in a conversation about historical fiction. Sarah Bearup-Neal, GAAC gallery manager, leads the discussion.

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Words that matter: Coffee with Holly Wren Spaulding

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The Glen Arbor Arts Center’s Coffee With the Authors is a live, conversational interview with local and regional authors about the writing craft and process. This series continues Sunday, July 30, at 1 p.m. with poet Holly Wren Spaulding in a conversation about keeping and banning words. Spaulding, a northern Michigan native now living in southern Maine, published her third book of poems, Familiars, in 2020, as a response to the 2015 deletion of words by the Oxford Junior Dictionary (OJD). The OJD’s deleted words list includes names of flora and fauna, in order to make room for newer words from the world of technology, such as “chatroom” and “bullet point.” Familiars is full of poems about “trees, flowers, magic, touch, memory, erasure, power, and [Spaulding’s] grief over the changing climate.” In her July 30 conversation, Spaulding will talk about the power of words, choosing them with care, and the ways in which she works to keep language vital through her writing. The Glen Arbor Sun interviewed Spaulding prior to her upcoming coffee date at the Arts Center.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center hosts Late Night Fridays, Plein Air

The Glen Arbor Arts Center is keeping the lights on a little longer this summer. Late Night Fridays continues Friday, July 28 with an evening viewing of the Members Create exhibit, and demonstrations by Members Create exhibitors Michele Aucello, Mercedes Bowyer, Barbara Greenwood, Jessica Kovan, and Mark Mehaffey. Then painters from across Michigan and the Midwest will converge on Glen Arbor August 4 and 5 for the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s 14th Plein Air Weekend.

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