Once upon a time, Beth Bricker, 64, thought she’d be a rock star when she grew up. But, as career paths go, this one wound around in another direction: It brought her back home to Leelanau County. Beth put down her guitar, picked up the paint brush and continued the family tradition: She became a […]

Kristina Schnepf, 56, just wanted to learn how to be a more skilled woodworker — not how to make a particular style of chair or table, but skills. Finding that kind of instruction to be nonexistent locally, what other option did she have but to found a school. The Green Door Folk School in Cedar, […]

Glenn Wolff is an “almost” Traverse City native [“My parents moved up here when I was 22 months old from Detroit,” he said]. He’s a busy 72-year-old. Glenn works across many media and disciplines, exhibits here and abroad, collaborates with other visual and performing artists, and makes music with his band in his spare time. […]

Jessica Kovan, 63, is a painter-writer [or writer-painter; she’s still figuring that out] living in Benzie County. Before this, she wore suits, panty hose and did important work on behalf of the natural world. Then came an epiphany in Detroit’s Metro Airport, and a life-redirecting gift from her Cousin Max. This interview was conducted in […]

Kim Bazemore, 60, grew up in Atlanta and thought she was “either going to study architecture or international issues and go work for Coca Cola in Spain.” Instead, she found Northern Michigan, beach stones, and metalsmithing.

Colleen Gleason is a Northern Michigan native, transplanted to the South by family and educational pursuits, who came back home, and couldn’t be happier. Colleen, 43, is a four-seasons gal, down to her bones, and it’s intrinsic to the work she creates with paint brush and palette knife.

Leelanau County artist Harvey Gordon, 84, inaugurates the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s 2026 exhibition season with a small exhibition, aptly titled Small Accomplishments [opening January 5]. In this edition of Creativity Q+A, Harvey talks technique and intention, and offers up a poem from which the exhibition’s title stems.

Elijah Nykamp, 30, is in the joy-sparking business. His eponymously-named business, Nykamping, is one part store front business, and one part working studio where he turns reclaimed, previously-owned, and well-loved textiles into comfy, happy-making garments. In Suttons Bay, Michigan? they ask him. But of course, he says.

Traverse City artist Pam Spicer, 68, speaks through her work. “My voice is my [paint] brush,” she said. “That’s … how I interact with the world.”

As part of the HIStory / HERstory exhibition we’re asking: Why should quilts be taken seriously? No one better than Marsha MacDowell to discuss this question.

Brianne Farley takes “silly seriously,” she said. The Traverse City author-illustrator believes “[h]aving fun is very important.” And both of those things infuse the 41-year-old’s work, which involves drawing on walls [aka painting murals] and detailing, in word and picture, how a worm makes a sandwich. Read on. It all makes a ton of sense. […]

In addition to everything else in his busy life, Nik Burkhart 38, maintains a studio practice focused on painting, drawing, making marks on wood — as well as on the usual suspects [paper, canvas]. “I’ve been drawn to working with wood because it allows me to engage directly with a natural material, and embedded in […]