Posts

Michelle Leask is an artist, too!

“Wow, this is good! I did this?” exclaims Michelle Leask, after writing a poem as part of the Consenses art project, a multi-genre game of telephone hatched by the Old Art Building in Leland. Starting with the purple glass Infinity Disk in front of the OAB, artists were invited to take inspiration from and respond to the creation of only the previous artist in the series, resulting in multiple expressions in a linear creative conversation. The show opened in July, and viewers can walk from work to work to see the multi-media series as it was created, one art form at a time. Michelle’s poem is her response to “a nice soft watercolor of flowers in a vase. The poem is called Beauty in Brokenness, because I saw so many contrasts of old and new.”

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Honoring our essential workers on Labor Day weekend

Maggie Maclellan (above) has been working at Art’s Tavern in Glen Arbor for 14 years (except for the winters when she left). An Empire local, Maggie has worked as a bartender, waitress, and hostess at Art’s, and this year she worked 70 hours during the Fourth of July week. “Generally I work 50 hours a week, and that’s not bad. That’s typical.” This summer Art’s has been short “maybe 20 people,” Maggie says. Usually we employ 60-70 through the summer; this year it’s around 40 or 50,” says Maggie as summer winds down: “I would like some time off. I’m gonna go camping one night, just by myself.”

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Little Traverse Inn for sale, Graeme Leask considers last decade, next chapter

Many a Friday night over the past decade, patrons at the Little Traverse Inn have finished their fish n chips and listened to the affable, often kilt clad owner Scotsman Graeme Leask roar out the lyrics to Donkey Riding by Great Big Sea, or Mary Mack by the Clancy Brothers, backed by whatever local band was in the house that particular Friday. Blessed with a big laugh, a soul full of poetry and music, and a gift of the gab, Graeme has nurtured the burgeoning popularity of the old inn along M-22 across from Little Traverse Lake that folks like to call Leelanau County’s living room.

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Leelanau County is alive (once again) with the sound of music

The restaurants are open for outside dining, the visitors are returning, and around Leelanau the dunes are alive with the sound of music. Several venues, from restaurants to bars to wineries, are offering live music in our area this summer. They include, in Glen Arbor, Boonedocks, Cherry Public House, M22 Wine, Glen Arbor Wines, and Whiskers at The Homestead, and elsewhere in the County, Hop Lot, Rove Estate, and Little Traverse Inn. Here are some of the wheres, whats, and who’s playins’.

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Live music returns to Little Traverse Inn

Little Traverse Inn, on M-22 between Glen Arbor and Leland, kept busy during the coronavirus stay-at-home lockdown this spring by preparing “Feed the Community” meals which customers picked up curbside. The Inn reopened on Memorial Day weekend, to scotch, beer, pub food and good cheer. Now live music is back, too.

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Leelanau Essentials—the workers who keep us safe during the pandemic. Meet Little Traverse Inn’s Nicole Anderson

From staff reports They are doctors, nurses and healthcare workers. They stock the shelves, slice the deli meat, and run the registers at grocery stores, they deliver your meals curbside, delicately pinching the paper bag between gloved fingers. They are the EMS first responders, the firemen and the cops. They are the distilleries that turn […]

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Meet the poet/bard/waiter at Little Traverse Inn

How many waiters can recite an Emily Dickinson poem to you while serving you haggis? Paul Baumbusch at the Little Traverse Inn can. Originally from Washington, D.C., Paul graduated from the creative writing program at Interlochen Arts Academy in 2004, then attended Northwestern University and graduated in 2008. His teacher at Interlochen was Michigan’s local “Notable Writer” Anne-Marie Oomen, from Empire.

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Work for no pay: government shutdown forces Leelanau resident to tighten belt, hurts local economy

The acting president’s shutdown of the federal government, now nearly a month old, has furloughed approximately 800,000 workers nationwide. One Leelanau County resident considered an “excepted employee” is an air traffic controller at Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City. He spoke with the Glen Arbor Sun under the condition of anonymity, citing a government “gag order”.

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Ruby John, Native Fiddler

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Ruby John, 26, is a jewel of a girl. Her name fits her. She’s also a gifted and versatile fiddler. One balmy Friday evening in mid-June she’s entertaining families at the Little Traverse Inn, fiddling in the Ruby Sky Band with some of her friends: Dane Hyde, who sings and plays guitar; Katie O’Conner, a singer and Irish dancer; and John Driscoll, a flautist and singer. The next week she’ll play for a staff dance at the Interlochen Arts Academy’s opening of summer camp. And after that, Saturday July 15, from 7 p.m.-1 a.m., Tucker’s in Northport. She’s known for playing a Métis-style of fiddle as well as Celtic, and standard country-and-mountain-style.

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Empire Emergency Fund concert features Good Boy

From staff reports Mark your calendar for Sunday, Oct. 25th from 4-6 p.m. This month’s Empire Area Community Emergency Fund’s monthly concert series will be held at the Little Traverse Inn on M-22 with a featured performance by our very own “Good Boy”. Come on out and enjoy a pubulously good time. Pre-Halloween costumes optional.

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