Date: August 21 – October 29, 2026
Location: Glen Arbor Arts Center Main Gallery
Opening Reception: Friday, August 21, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Invitational group exhibition featuring the works of Shanny Brooke (paintings), Cynthia Marks (ceramic vessels) and Michelle Tock York (mixed media sculpture).
Story is at the center of the work created by friends and colleagues Shanny Brooke, Cynthia Marks, and the late Michelle Tock York. Brooke’s cold wax paintings typically focus on women and animals, a symbolic means to deepen her relationship to nature, and a way to better understand herself. Marks creates detail-rich, decorative, handbuilt ceramic vessels created from slabs and coils that draw on her love of flowers and art history. Tock York, who died in 2025, was widely known for her mythic, found-object sculpture that mixes ceramics, metal parts, driftwood, antique store finds, and more.
“The thread that connects us,” Brooke said, “is the feeling of uplift we have while making our work; and our hope that the viewer connects with the feeling of being uplifted. Our work is personal, and tends to be about the narratives in our lives, and the connection to nature.”
Enjoy perusing images from the Taking Flight exhibition online beginning August 21.
Here are two opportunities to explore the Taking Flight exhibit:
1.) Taking Flight exhibitors Shanny Brooke, Cynthia Marks and the late Michelle Tock York talked with GAAC Gallery Manager Sarah Bearup-Neal for the GAAC’s Creativity Q+A project, long-form interviews about process, materials, tools and creativity thinking. Click on each exhibitor’s name to be linked with those conversations. Available anytime.
2.) In Conversation With Taking Flight Artists: Shanny Brooke and Cynthia Marks provide insights into the original idea for this exhibition of friends’ work; and talk more about how they pivoted when their friend Michelle Tock York died in 2025. Brooke, owner of the Traverse City gallery Higher Art, and Marks are both experienced practitioners with decades of experience in the studio between them. A conversation about the creative process and how these makers’ works reflect the world around and within them both. September 13, 1 pm. FREE.