HIStory/HERstory: Whose Story? The Glen Arbor Arts Center poses this question in one of its most profound and timely exhibitions to date. Whose Story? is not simply an art show. It is a reckoning. The exhibition invites artists to examine who exactly shapes the narrative—to explore identity, legacy, and power. At its crux lies the question: who determines which stories are immortalized and which are relegated as derivative.
“Blue skies smilin’ at me. Nothin’ but blue skies do I see. Bluebirds singin’ a song. Nothin’ but blue skies from now on.” Willie Nelson’s words and voice carry a certain kind of optimism that feels infinite, much like the sky itself. The Glen Arbor Arts Center is honoring the sky with its first exhibition for the 2025 calendar year: The Sky Is Always There. The show explores that vast atmospheric expanse through a variety of creative offerings. Sarah Bearup-Neal, gallery manager of the GAAC, is the visionary behind this exhibition. It fosters a reconnection with the sky’s dynamic grandeur and gentle profundity. “In the purest and most constant way, the sky is always with us. During the early phase of developing this show, I began wondering if the sky—this enormous thing—was so familiar, so very much with us, that it becomes just more psychic wallpaper. Just another screen saver in people’s busy lives. There was a time when the sky was a place of awe for people who weren’t bombarded and numbed by an infinite number of images, input, and ‘information.’ People used to look at the sky for answers to the great questions that plague humans, like: why are the gods laughing at us? The sky had the power to humble mere mortals,” Bearup-Neal said.
Coffee with the Authors is a live, conversational interview with local and regional authors about the writing craft and process. The series kicks off Saturday, May 27, at 11 am at the Glen Arbor Arts Center. Traverse City Record-Eagle journalist, essayist, and author Mardi Jo Link will talk about memoir writing with GAAC gallery manager Sarah Bearup-Neal.
The Glen Arbor Arts Center’s current VESSELS exhibit offers an out-of-the-box look at bowls, baskets, urns, pods, and other objects that store and carry things. This juried exhibition is on display until Oct. 27 and features 28 exhibitors from Michigan, California, Illinois, and Rhode Island. Of particular note, the exhibit includes the Creation of the World 6/9, a needlework tapestry from Judy Chicago’s “Birth Project”—a feminist initiative from the early 1980s, in which Chicago collaborated with more than 150 artists to create dozens of images combining painting and needlework that celebrate various aspects of the birth process; from the painful to the mythical. This series celebrated the birth-giving capacity of women along with their creative spirit. With women’s reproductive rights under siege, and the arts reemerging as a forum of social and political expression, we chatted with the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s gallery manager Sarah Bearup-Neal about VESSELS and the inclusion of a work from “Birth Project.”
The Glen Arbor Arts Center (GAAC)—formerly the Glen Arbor Art Association—inaugurates its new gallery and exhibitions space with “New Gallery/New Work,” on Friday, Jan. 12, from 6-8 p.m. A reception to open the exhibition begins at 6 p.m.
“Rock, Scissors, Paper” brings the work of three visual artist working in narrative forms to Center Gallery, 6023 S. Lake St., Glen Arbor, from Sept. 15-Oct. 8. A reception to open the exhibition is Friday, Sept. 15, 6 – 8 p.m.
Thirty-three paintings and photographs selected from the Glen Arbor Art Association (GAAA) Artist-in-Residence Collection (2008-present) will be exhibited at the Elizabeth Lane Oliver Center for the Arts in Frankfort, Oct. 21-Nov. 26. The show opens with a reception Oct. 21, 5-7 p.m. at the Oliver Art Center, 132 Coast Guard Road.
In the Talk About Art series Sarah Bearup-Neal conducts live interviews with local and regional artists about their art making and thinking. These insightful interviews take place monthly at 7:30 p.m., at the Glen Arbor Art Association (GAAA) at no charge.