Lake Street Studios Center Gallery in Glen Arbor opens an exhibit on Friday, Aug. 21, featuring artist Jessica Kovan and her work “It’s All About Love,” which uses birds not so much as symbols of flight, but as a way to consider connection, compassion, and our shared responsibility to the natural world.
The region’s need for housing has been well documented. That’s particularly true for homes priced for sale between $150,000 and $300,000, as well as long-term rentals commensurate with that price. In Leelanau County, with a median price of $640,000 and an average price of $937,506, the challenge is acute. Perhaps part of the answer lies in looking north. Emmet County’s housing market mirrors that of Leelanau in many ways. It is a popular resort and vacation area with a number of high-end second and vacation homes. In trying to get arms around the problem, the Leelanau Peninsula Economic Foundation undertook a survey of county businesses, which concluded the number one barrier to doing business is the lack of workforce housing. Now the Leelanau County Housing Collaborative, an arm of the LPEF, is asking workers, employers, and other community members to take part in the Leelanau County Attainable Housing Survey. The survey is designed to gather public input on housing needs and community priorities to help inform future housing solutions across the county.
The Boyd family would like to extend their appreciation to the many people who assisted in making the Larry’s Dunes & Dogs inaugural event on July 2 a success. The fundraiser was held in honor of Lawrence Boyd IV, a Traverse City parking services employee who last November was shot and killed on the job.
They say you can’t go home again, but guitarist Joe Taylor would beg to differ. The South Carolina native returned to the Palmetto State after decades in New York City and hasn’t missed a beat. Now he feels like he’s coming home again, with a date: Aug. 19 at Music On The Mountain at The Homestead. “The fellas and I are really looking forward to it,” he says of himself and his bandmates. “We love the place.”
The Homestead near Glen Arbor is adding to its many attractions by creating an art gallery in the resort’s Welcome Center lobby in partnership with Elizabeth Lane Oliver Center for the Arts of Frankfort. The Homestead’s gallery will display works depicting the region, from the dunes and Lake Michigan to Leland Fishtown, the lighthouse at Point Betsie and more. Oliver Art Center will showcase its members with a rotating exhibit. The two will also collaborate on a plein air event to take place on the grounds of The Homestead this fall.
In the primary election on Tuesday, Aug. 4, the 46 percent of eligible Leelanau County voters who cast ballots sided with the winners of those races. Leelanau voters also approved all the township millages put before them. Leelanau voted for the following primary winners: Abdul El-Sayed for Senate, Jack Bergman and Callie Barr for the Congressional race, and Jocelyn Benson and John James for the governor’s race.
For Jabo Bihlman, music is a calling. The Traverse City guitarist, singer and songwriter performs at clubs, wineries, and on Aug. 5 at Music On The Mountain at The Homestead. But he also works with television networks and streaming services. He’s a producer and engineer at his home-based recording studio. And he tours nationally and internationally. Not bad for a kid who hated guitar. “I had a couple lessons when I was 10 or 12 and hated it. I was a jock—in high school I played football and pole vaulted.”
“It is easy to fly a flag over a house that sits empty half the year,” writes Cameron Krepps in this op-ed about the unaffordability for many to live, or remain, in Leelanau County, which the Sun published in our July 30 edition. “It is easy to talk about independence while depending on people who can no longer afford to live near the work they do. That is the part nobody wants to say out loud.”
Two forest stewards bring to life the world of Northern Michigan’s woodland 250 years before—at the time of the nation’s founding—and after. Woodland Home: A History Of A Place takes place at the Glen Arbor Arts Center on August 1 at 11 am, with Dave Fenlon, Interpretive Park Ranger with Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore; and Mae Wright, Tribal Historic Preservation Officers with the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians. The program is free and is offered as part of the GAAC’s American Tree exhibit.
In 1944, the Smokey Bear public awareness campaign launched with the famous tagline, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.” Poorly extinguished campfires, reckless use of fireworks, even smoldering cigarette butts carelessly discarded can ignite a woodland conflagration of immense and tragic proportions. And then there’s the CO2 emissions tinderbox we’ve created. According to the Canadian Climate Institute, “Accelerating climate change, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, makes wildfires bigger, hotter, and more destructive.” Now it’s all come home—to my home and yours.