Talks & Lectures

Mark talks in more detail about the process and thinking behind his Random collages, a series he began seven years ago, in a short video interview.

Building A Character — Michael Delp — poet, essayist, teacher, fly fisherman – speaks to the beauty of streams and fresh water…

Building A Story — Teresa Scollon, Traverse City poet and teacher, talks about To Embroider The Gound With Prayer, creating a collection of poems that consider her father’s illness + death; and a new volume, No Trouble Staying Awake.

Building An Escape – Janie Paul, co-founder of the Prisons Creative Art Project, published Making Art In Prisons, and received a 2024 Michigan Notable Books award.

On a 2024 painting expedition, Traverse City, Michigan painter Barbara Reich stumbled upon a small group of windswept trees and vegetation 600 feet above Lake Michigan.

As part of the GAAC’s The Sky Is Always There exhibit, we spoke with two visual artists whose works are a testament to their fascination with and reverence for the sky.

As part of the GAAC’s current exhibit, Shrines + Altars, a conversation with Josh Denby, head of the Sight + Sound Department at the Traverse Area District Library, about the library’s shrine to the arts of music, film, and television.

Claudia Keglovitz talks about her tools, process, and the intentions she brings to her collages in this recorded interview.

Dana Falconberry talks about her tools, process, and her documentation of native plants local to northern Michigan in this recorded interview.

Happiness is an elusive state that often seems beyond one’s grasp. Or, is it? View Now!

A conversation with John H. Hartig, Ph.D, author of the 2022 book Great Lakes Champions, the story of 14 people who loved the Great Lakes so much that they devoted their careers…

A Feral Housewife, an exhibition of collages by Leelanau County artist Mary Beth Acosta, take up residence in the Glen Arbor Arts Center Lobby Gallery January 6 – April 21. View it in the GAAC Main Gallery or on line. Working under the creative nom de guerre “The Feral Housewife,” Acosta uses simple, familiar tools […]

As part of the GAAC’s Telling Stories exhibition [January 13 – March 23, 2023], Gallery Manager Sarah Bearup-Neal talked with Michigan residents about stories told in the sky and on the ground. Farm Stories: From 1901 to 1961, Leelanau County residents who found themselves homeless, and in need of work, found shelter and employment at […]

As part of the GAAC’s Telling Stories exhibition [January 13 – March 23, 2023], Gallery Manager Sarah Bearup-Neal talked with Northern Michigan residents about stories told in the sky and on the ground. Sky Stories: Every Monday morning, at 6:45 and 8:45 on Interlochen Public Radio, Star Lore Historian Mary Stewart Adams tells stories about […]

Alison Kysia is the creator of the multi-media visual art and storytelling project 99 Clay Vessels.

In 1987, the Leelanau Historical Society began documenting, interpreting, collecting, and preserving birch bark and quillwork baskets, and black ash baskets.

A conversation with painter Linda Dewey and poet Anne-Marie Oomen about their collaborative project On The Precipice, a small exhibition of four paintings and four companion poems…

Woodland Studies is a series of black and white photographs by Grand Rapids photographer Rodney Martin. The region’s woodland, rivers and natural areas are well documented by all manner of visual artist. In this case, Rodney Martin has elected to make images in black and white – a creative departure worth exploring.

As part of the GAAC’s PaperWork exhibition, we’re in conversation with two people for whom the old art of papier mache is foundational to their work – Dorienne Sherrod and Sharon Morris of the Big Heads Corp.

Leelanau County artist Mary Beth Acosta works in collage, under the creative nom de guerre “The Feral Housewife.”

The genre known as “artist’s books” is not easily defined. People have been making beautiful, artful books for centuries. But “artist’s books” defy convention, and occupy a niche all their own.

Ohio artist Michelle Stitzlein is a creative force whose sculptures elevate familiar objects to a new level of art.

As part of the GAAC’s exhibition Everyday Objects, we’re in conversation with Leelanau County artist Steve Palmer – maker of mixed media fish from found and antique objects.

The world is swimming in material goods – the stuff of landfills as well as the stuff of a rich body of work by visual artists.

“I love the scent of jasmine, honeysuckle, and orange blossom. They remind me of gardens and visits to the ocean I would make as a boy.” – Narisco Rodriguez. Hank Feeley examines the fascinating history of flower painting from the ancient Egyptians to today’s masters like the radicals Gert and Uwe Tobias, with stops along the […]

Nancy McRay, 65, is “a fiber artist … mostly a weaver” of tapestries who pushes the medium out of its historic, domestic context, and into the Capital “A” Art world.

Terry Wooten, 72, is an oral poet, a bard in the truest sense. This Antrim County artist has authored more than 500 published poems, and memorized 567 poems.

Angela Saxon, 59, is a self-described “mark maker.” That’s her calling and the basis of her creative practice, which is about seeing more, getting beyond the surface of things, and depicting layers of time in her paintings, prints and drawings.

Traverse City artist Joan Richmond responded to the COVID shutdown in her Northern Michigan town by going to work in her studio. She created 60 collages, a selection of these abstract, color-and-line composition are exhibited at the Glen Arbor Arts Center.

Jesse Hickman, 65, moved to Northern Michigan from Chicago, Illinois more than 25 years ago, wife and two small children in tow. The creative opportunities that Chicago offered this visual artist were weighed against the challenges of raising children in a city.

The Glen Arbor Arts Center presents an interview with Paul Stebelton. Traverse City poet and proprietor of Landmark Books, a bookstore, and Landmark Press, talks about his 2018 chapbook “Writer’s Block.”

The Glen Arbor Arts Center presents an interview with Crystal Neubauer. Wisconsin visual artist + teacher working in mixed media, talks about her 5-Minute Strategy for pushing through creative block.

Traverse City artist Joan Richmond responded to the COVID shutdown in her Northern Michigan town by going to work in her studio. She created 60 collages, a selection of these abstract, color-and-line composition are exhibited at the Glen Arbor Arts Center.

The Glen Arbor Arts Center presents an interview with Fleda Brown. The Traverse City poet and author, talks about writer’s block and not-writing.

Join Hank Feeley, artist and occasional art historian, for The History of Landscape Painting, another informative, fast-paced online lecture in his continuing series Art In 28 1/2 Minutes.

Politics – past and present – provide ample fodder for creative inspiration. Sarah Bearup-Neal, Glen Arbor Arts Center gallery manager, surveys some of these powerful examples…

Studio artist Hank Feeley returns with another lecture in his recurring series “Art in 28 ½ Minutes.” This time, Feeley takes with a look at “The Power of Art,”