About Us - Glen Arbor Art Association

Artists in Residence The Glen Arbor Art Association offers several creative residencies each year. In cooperation with Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, participants will work at Thoreson Farm, a farmstead in the historic Port Oneida district of the National Lakeshore. Its newly remodeled buildings provide studio space and overlook open fields and woodlands. The National Lakeshore includes several miles of spectacular Lake Michigan shoreline, wooded hills and the Crystal River. The purpose of our residencies is to provide visiting artists with a respite from daily responsibilities to enable them to concentrate on their work.

We Provide Housing
Housing will be provided a few miles south of Thoreson Farm in the village of Glen Arbor in a one person apartment in the newly constructed in-town Art Association Building. The apartment includes a small bath, a limited "galley" kitchen, a bedroom and a small living room/workspace. This space is particularly suited for work by writers, musicians and composers. Visual artists usually prefer the elbow room at Thoreson Farm. Resident artists will need to bring linens for a double bed and towels. The small refrigerator is quite limited but two markets and many wonderful restaurants are within easy walking distance.

Who May Apply?
Residencies are considered in writing, visual arts, photography, sculpture, fiber arts, ceramics, music, philosophy and creative research. The selection committee will consider requests in light of suitability for our present facilities. Artists who are chosen are expected to make a presentation to the community during their residency on the second Thursday evening of their stay. Artists may be asked, but will not be required, to donate one piece of work created during their residencies to the Glen Arbor Art Association.

How About Dates?
Residencies can be from two weeks to one month in duration. Residencies of one week may be requested but are not advised, especially for visitors unfamiliar with the area. Applications may be submitted until March 1 for the season (May - October) of the same year. They will be reviewed promptly after the submission deadline. The season may be extended through fall and winter, with work space limited to the apartment, for writers, musicians, and other practitioners of creative artistic and intellectual pursuits. Residencies are subject to scheduling availability that does not conflict with ongoing art classes in the Art Center and at Thoreson Farm.

How To Apply?
To apply for a residency, please send a letter with a brief bio stating your intent for the time spent in a residency. Include three samples of your work in an appropriate format. Visual artists should send at least five photos of current work. Any artist who has an active website is encouraged to submit the url address.

Residences are scheduled from Sunday AM to Saturday AM. When applying, please note your preference for dates. All mailed material should include a self-addressed stamped envelope. Mail applications to the attention of the Artist in Residence Program at bottom.

Victor Pytko (May 4-17) is a painter from Birmingham, MI. His paintings hang in private and corporate collections, and he has exhibited extensively during his forty years as a practicing artist. He will attempt to reconcile the differences between representation and abstraction in his work and aims to complete two or three large works and three or four smaller ones during his visit.

Matthew Ballou (May 18-31) is a painter and draftsman living in Evanston, IL. Having earned a BFA from the Chicago Art Institute and an MFA from Indiana University, he is now a Visiting Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Missouri. He plans to develop a series of drawings incorporating the unique qualities of light and land in this area and to explore how a sense of place affects portraiture. www.eikonktizo.com

Wayne Pope (June 1-14) is a free-lance writer and nature photographer from Okemos, MI, and an adjunct faculty member at Lansing Community College.

His intent is to photograph landscapes and to document the plant life of Glen Arbor and the Sleeping Bear Dunes. He then plans to publish his photos and his accompanying stories in the Jack Pine Warbler and the Lansing State Journal.

Darren Johnson (June 15-28) is a figurative painter about to receive an MFA from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He looks forward to refining his work and enriching it through new experiences and new acquaintances. He considers himself a Midwesterner and strives to infuse his art with humor and the familiar cultural practices of the area. http://darrenjohnsonart.googlepages.com

Jessica Loyd (June 29-July 12) is a ceramicist, educator, and arts administrator from South Bend, IN. She works at the South Bend Regional Museum of Art. She attended our Val Cushing workshop in 2007 and found it, along with the environment and the people she met, to be a magical and life enhancing experience. She will use her visit to solve problems and move toward a sense of completion in her work.

Douglas David (August 17-30) , from Indianapolis, is a highly accomplished oil painter with a BFA from the Herron School of Art and studied at New York's Art Student League. His exhibition venues include Betsie Bay Furniture in Frankfort, where he will exhibit this summer, and several years at the Petoskey and Charlevoix Art Fairs. He plans to immerse himself in the county, the dunes, the islands, and our sunrises and sunsets. www.DouglasDavid.com

Sharon Rusch Shaver (August 31-September 13) is a painter from Gallatin, TN, who has been active in her art for over thirty years. She has exhibited extensively, with one person shows in Nashville, Chicago, and Brussels, Belgium, among several others. She would like to use her residency to create a collection of oil paintings representing her excitement and admiration of this area and its people. www.sharonruschshaver.com

Dawn Johnson (September 14-27) is a painter from Livonia, MI. She attended the Ringling School of Art and Madonna University. She has worked as an art instructor and a designer and has exhibited in the Livonia area. She works in oil, watercolor, and acrylics, and prefers to paint outdoors. She wants to paint the natural, timeless beauty of our area and to explore the ways civilization interacts with the landscape. www.Dawnjohnsonart.com

Steven Huyser-Honig (October 5-18) is a photographer from Grand Rapids. He is self-taught and has turned his passion into his profession, a process that began with him illustrating his wife's free-lance articles. They now collaborate as travel journalists, and his photos have been exhibited throughout Michigan. He hopes to share with us his sense of wonder and whimsy at the beauty of our world and our area. www.greatlakeseditions.com or www.beautyworthpreserving.com

Franklin Speyers (October 19-November 1) is a painter from Grand Rapids and a faculty member at Calvin College. He was educated at Calvin, Pratt Institute, and Harvard. His goal is to create a series of landscape paintings on site at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. His broad involvement in Art History and Art Theory will provide the foundation for his explorations as a painter.