Suzanne Wilson

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Remembering Suzanne Wilson’s creative mission: Friday night summer art openings resume at Lake Street Studios

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To know the history of the arts in Glen Arbor is to know Suzanne Wilson. A venerated artist and pillar of the community, Suzanne had the singular ability to translate Leelanau’s land, light, and water into work that felt both intimate and expansive. But perhaps more significantly, Suzanne did not simply depict Leelanau’s landscape—she transformed its cultural fabric. In the early 1990s, Suzanne began organizing Friday night art openings at Lake Street Studio’s Center Gallery, the public-facing component of her studio. The summer 2025 season of Center Gallery opens on June 27 with Joan Richmond, a Traverse City-based artist best known for her luminous landscapes.

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Artists Helping Artists: community rallies to support Beth Bricker

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The Glen Arbor artist community will hold a reception at Lake Street Studios on Saturday, June 1, from 3-6 pm for an exhibition that runs until June 26 with proceeds from all works sold benefiting Beth Bricker, co-owner of Forest Gallery and a pillar of the local artist community who is battling cancer. Beth’s parents, the late Ananda and Ben Bricker, were founding members of the Glen Arbor Art Association 40 years ago. “Beth has always been a champion of the artists in her community, and it is our hope that we, as artists and friends, can send love and support back to Beth and her family in this emotionally and financially difficult time,” the Lake Street Studios friends wrote in a statement.

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Lost and Found Landscapes lead Lake Street Studios summer series

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Friday night art openings at Lake Street Studios Center Gallery were the ingenious creation of venerated Glen Arbor artist Suzanne Wilson who conceived of them back in 1990. Allison Stupka, Wilson’s daughter and owner of LSSCG, recalls that Glen Arbor based artist, Greg Sobran, was the very first artist ever featured at these summer openings. To commence the 2023 season, Northern Michigan artist Wendy McWhorter’s work will be on display from Friday, June 30 through Thursday, July 6. Her body of work is entitled: Lost and Found Landscapes which is comprised of 20 oil paintings of the Port Oneida Rural Historic District and the surrounding area. “These paintings portray my vision of what the original homesteaders planted, which no longer blooms, but through the poetry of painting is reimagined,” said McWhorter.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center hosts artist in resident David LeGault

Glen Arbor Arts Center artist-in-resident David LeGault talks about residency on Friday, May 13, noon in the GAAC classroom. The presentation is open to public at no charge. LeGault, a resident of Westland, Michigan, used his residency to work on and revise a collection of essays on the subject of board games, and the history of games. LeGault will discuss his book revisions, and the mechanics of crafting a unified narrative.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center features artist-in-residence presentations

Since the 1990s, the Glen Arbor Arts Center (GAAC) has welcomed visiting artists who want to immerse themselves in their work. The GAAC’s Suzanne Wilson Artist-in-Residence program offers up to seven, creative practitioners a two-week respite from their daily lives in order to focus on a new idea that needs space and time to develop, to an on-going project that might be nearing conclusion.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center features Artist-in-Residence collection

The Glen Arbor Arts Center (GAAC) spotlights its permanent collection of works by more than 40 artists who have enjoyed a two-week residency in the GAAC’s Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program. The exhibition runs Nov. 9-Dec. 21 at the GAAC, 6031 S. Lake St., Glen Arbor.

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Remembering Michael Buhler, a man of impeccable taste, curiosity and talent

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For 20 years, Michael Buhler was co-editor of the Sun. He designed these pages, adeptly arranged advertisements like Tetris blocks, and placed the stories and photos before you. Mike helped turn this rag into an attractive, full-color newsprint magazine with ads and images that pop, and stories that educate—a true asset of our vibrant community. But no longer. Mike died suddenly on the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 16. He leaves a void in our hearts the size of the Manitou Passage.

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Glen Arbor Art goes on the road to Frankfort

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.

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Greg and Wanda Sobran’s bold strokes

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Over the past 20 years, Greg and Wanda Sobran of Sobran Studios, have become fixtures of the Glen Arbor arts scene — if two inveterate, peripatetic adventurers could be described in such stationary terms.

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Center Gallery & Forest Gallery

In 1983 Becky Thatcher and Ananda Bricker invited all the artists they knew (including Suzanne Wilson) to a potluck at Ananda’s beach on Glen Lake. This group, informally organized, then met every Thursday morning at the Soda Shop (now the Western Avenue Grill) to discuss plans on how to market their art.

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