A chronicle of creativity. Interviews with creative practitioners – writers, performing and visual artists, GAAC artist-members, and other Northern Michigan makers – about process, technique, tools, materials and the influence of place on practice.
Creativity Q+A with Hank Feeley
Well into his career as an advertising executive, Hank Feeley, 84, wondered if he’d taken the wrong fork in the road. Wonder led to action: He hung up his business suit and enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A painting hobby became a professional practice. Making, he said, is “what human […]
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Creativity Q+A with Dani Knoph Davis
“Place has become the bedrock of my work — ‘place’ meaning Michigan, where I was born and raised,” said Boyne City painter Dani Knoph Davis. “Learning about the wildlife of a place is so important, but has been swept under the rug over the last 50 years.” And so, with every brushstroke, Dani, 39, makes […]
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Creativity Q+A with Douglas Racich
Leelanau County painter Douglas Racich, 64, divides his painting time between watercolor and egg tempera, an ancient, slow-moving medium made of ingredients that sound like the beginning of a cake recipe. The world outside Racich’s studio moves quickly. He does not. He depicts still, quiet subjects. Racich’s paintings are about Northern Michigan — to which […]
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Creativity Q+A with Jil Johnson
Jil Johnson, 63, is an outsider artist: no formal training, works in a naive style, wants to make beautiful things by hand. She lives in Traverse City. She wants “to live to the fullest, and that means being authentic, and that means knowing who you are.” She does. This interview was conducted in December 2024 […]
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Creativity Q+A with Katherine Corden
Traverse City painter Katherine Corden, 33, has “a short attention span when it comes to [her] painting.” Hard to believe given the extensive, practical evidence of her steady focus: on her process, her making, and the many ways she lets the world know about it. In depicting her favorite subjects — groups of people gathered, […]
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Creativity Q+A Video Interview with 2025 Manitou Music Poster Artist Barbara Reich
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.
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Creativity Q+A with Jan Johnson Doerfer
Jan Johnson Doerfer, 73, feels better when she is creating, when she can go down to the beach and watch the water, or connect with the birds, or add to a collection of sticks that are “art waiting to be made.” Creative work has been a constant thread throughout her adult life. Now, this enduring […]
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Video Interviews with Jeff Condon and Susan Jacoby
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.
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Creativity Q+A with Chad Pastotnik
Deep Wood Press is situated on four acres in Antrim County, surrounded by 450 acres of land under the protection and stewardship of the Michigan Nature Association. This is Chad Pastotnik’s home, backyard, place of work, and shelter from the storm of contemporary life. This maker of hand-built, hand-crafted fine press books, age 56, bought […]
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Creativity Q+A with L.C. Lim
Frankfort artist L.C. Lim feels her way through her work. “Once I get a feeling from a place, then I’ll use whatever medium will make that feeling [visible],” she said. “That’s how I always go about it. I never think about the medium.” Instead, she think-feels the places that bring her joy: the view through […]
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Creativity Q+A with Fleda Brown
Fleda Brown, 80, is so much more than her resume: author of 12 poetry books, and four memoirs; Professor Emerita at the University of Delaware; recipient of many awards including a Pushcart Prize. This plain-spoken writer is a fan of Elvis, and wrote a book of poems about him. Water recurs [“There’s so much water […]
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Creativity Q+A Video with Claudia Keglovitz
Claudia Keglovitz talks about her tools, process, and the intentions she brings to her collages in this recorded interview.
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Creativity Q+A with Mercedes Bowyer
Mercedes Bowyer, 44, has had a seat on both sides of the arts table. For more than a decade, she lead the Oliver Arts Center, a community arts center in Frankfort, Michigan. After leaving the Oliver, she found herself making the art. A series of life changes pointed her back to an old familiar practice: […]
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Creativity Q+A with Wendy McWhorter
Antrim County painter Wendy McWhorter, 68, is a late bloomer, self-described. But after retiring in 2013 she blossomed — a verb that applies to her creative practice, and her subject matter. Wendy is passionate about flowers. They meet so many needs: color, shape, their brightening presence in the landscape and the front yard. But it’s […]
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