If it’s July, then it must be time for art projects for Glen Lake middle schoolers. Same for August. And September, October—you get the idea. Thanks to a partnership between the Glen Arbor Arts Center and Leelanau Investing For Teens—the Suttons Bay-based center for after-school activities commonly known by its acronym LIFT—each month the art center offers a class for students from Glen Lake Middle School. The partnership started in April 2024 and programs will continue through April 2025, or until all 12 classes are fulfilled, though both GAAC and LIFT are hopeful additional funding will allow it to continue.
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The TC Dance Project returns once again to Leelanau County’s historic barns and pastoral landscape. In collaboration with the Glen Arbor Arts Center, the dance performance will be held on Saturday, July 30, from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Nash Road Red Barn near Maple City—on property owned by an Arts Center board member.
Zachary Guthier, visiting from Madison, Wisconsin, danced on this Glen Lake dock prior to his Aug. 12 performance with the TC Dance Project at Thoreson Farm, an initiative of the Glen Arbor Arts Center.
The Glen Arbor Arts Center will host the Traverse City Dance Project [TCDP] and the Traverse City Orchestra string quartet for an evening of orchestral music and dance at its Thoreson Farm campus tonight, August 11, at 7 pm. The event is sold out.
“Marks On Clay,” a three-day, hands-on workshop June 21-23, explores pottery decoration beyond simply glazing. Offered through the Glen Arbor Arts Center (GAAC), potter John Huston leads students through traditional methods of using colored slips for sgraffito and slip trailing, oxide mixes for over/underglaze brushwork, and carving and impressing techniques.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore officials and volunteers honored Leonard Thoreson at this year’s Port Oneida Fair by giving the nearly-90-year-old a ride in the tractor he had donated to the Park three years ago (it was not in running condition then). Volunteers and staff sang an early “Happy Birthday” to Thoreson, who celebrates his actual birthday this November. Thoreson, a descendant of settlers at Port Oneida’s Thoreson Farm, was the longtime custodian of the Glen Arbor Township Hall and retired in 2013.
On Wednesday, July 20, from 10 a.m. to noon, Leonard Thoreson, descendant of Port Oneida’s Thoreson Farm, will speak about his family’s life on the farm. This ROOTStories program of Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear will also include a guided tour of the Thoreson farm, including some of the building interiors which are usually not open for public access. Attendees should meet at the Olsen Farmstead, located at 3164 W. Harbor Hwy (M-22) in Maple City (just three miles north of Glen Arbor). A $5 donation per person will be collected. Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear is also offering horse and wagon tours of Port Oneida on Thursdays at 4:30 and 5:45 p.m. with reservations. PHSB is a non-profit partner of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore preserving and interpreting the historic structures and landscapes. For more information on PHSB and its educational programs visit www.phsb.org.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will host its annual pruning workshop on May 2 in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District. The workshop will be held at the Thoreson Farmstead, which is located on Thoreson Road, four miles north of Glen Arbor on M-22. Just follow the signs.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will again be hosting their successful barn restoration workshop June 18-22 at the Thoreson Granary and Corn Crib located off M-22 on Thoreson Road, four miles north of Glen Arbor. This year marks the 17th anniversary of the partnership between the Michigan Barn Preservation Network and the National Lakeshore in developing this series of “hands-on” workshops. The park and the Michigan Barn Preservation Network are providing the skilled labor to put on this workshop.
The final presentation of the Glen Arbor Art Association’s Artist-in-Residence series will be on Thursday, Oct. 13 at 7:30 p.m. Pennsylvania artist and summer resident of Burdickville, Lynn Uhlmann will present her work of landscapes in the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore.