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Traverse City hosts a Downtown Art Walk tomorrow night (Friday, May 2) from 5-9 PM.

You're invited to enjoy a self guided tour of galleries and exhibits in Downtown Traverse City featuring local art and wine. Visit each participating location, receive a stamp and enter to win a $500 Downtown Shopping Spree. Walking guides will be available at each participating location and the Downtown Office.

Visit the Downtown Traverse City web site for more information!

The Suttons Bay Art Festival (August 2nd and 3rd, 2008) is holding a contest to design a poster for this year's festival with a prize of $300. You can use paint, markers, photography, digital art, crayons, chalk - whatever! The winning design will be used for the poster and T-shirts sold at the Art Festival.

Poster entries will be judged by the Suttons Bay Art Festival committee and you can get all the information right here.

Photo credit: Suttons Bay Artfest 2006 by Andy McFarlane

The Exposures Open House will be held Friday (Apr 25) at the Old Art Building. The event features an exhibition of work from this year's Exposures magazine along with refreshments and music. The opening reception is on Friday, April 25 from 5 to 8 pm featuring original artwork, essay and poetry readings, hors d'oeuvres and live music by the "I Am Art" student band. The exhibit continues on Saturday, April 26 from 10 am to 4 pm and this is a great chance to support some wonderful student artists and writers from all of Leelanau County's schools.

Check out a few items from past editions of Exposures from Leelanau.com and the Northern Michigan Journal!

The Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College will host an evening with the internationally acclaimed landscape artist Russell Chatham in association with the exhibition "Poetry of Landscape: The Seasons" paintings by Russell Chatham on Friday April 4, 2008 from 6-8 PM. Admission to the evening event is $25 for the public. Museum members will be admitted free with their membership card, but must have a ticket. Tickets can be purchased online by calling the Box Office at 231-995-1553.

The Chatham exhibition is a 36-year retrospective of the artist’s career featuring 28 paintings dating from 1969 – 2005. On exhibit since January 20, the collection presents a rare opportunity to see such an extensive variety of paintings by this renowned artist in one location.  Recognized by many as the finest American landscape painter living today, Chatham will speak at 6:30 PM followed by informal conversation in the museum's galleries with those in attendance regarding the wonderful collection of paintings being shown from the private collections of Randall and Mary Pittman and Forest Health Services.

You can learn more about Russell Chatham at his website. He is represented locally by Piper and Harry Goldson of Suttons Bay Galleries (who were instrumental in making this exhibition a reality).

The Muskegon Chronicle reports that the Sleeping Bear Dunes are going to get a little envelope time in 2008 with the release of the latest Nature of America educational series. It was painted by artist John Dawson of Hilo, HI under the art direction of Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD (kind of a curious combination it seems). Michigan is the freshwater dunes leader, with 275,000 acres of dunes. The 27 different birds, insects and vegetation featured on the stamps are representative of the flora and fauna found in Great Lakes dunes. Feel welcome to post a comment with any or all of those you can identify below!

Read Postal Service honors sand dunes with stamps. Stamps will be available later this year (after the rate hike) and if you want a really big version, click over to download the Great Lakes Dunes stamp from the US Postal Service.

We at Leelanau.com: Jeremy, Fred, Steve, Jen, Andy and our families would like to wish all of you the happiest of holiday seasons and the very best for the year to come.

We very much appreciate the business we have received and also everyone who visits our site and shares our love for this beautiful part of the earth.

If you have a holiday message to share with everyone that you please post it in the comments below!

The photo is Christmas at Tamarack Gallery by tamarackgallery, and you can see more photos from the gallery right here and also visit the web site for Tamarack Gallery in Omena.

The newly re-opened State Theatre will host a special Sneak Preview of Mr. Art Critic, the latest movie by Traverse City filmmaker Richard Brauer. The Preview begins at 8:30 PM on Thursday Dec. 27th and tickets are available at the door or online at the State Theatre web site.

Mr. Art Critic tells the humorous story of M.J. Clayton (portrayed by Bronson Pinchot, "Balki from Perfect Strangers), a high profile art critic from Chicago known across the country for his heartless commentaries. After a scolding from his boss, Clayton takes a vacation (to Mackinac Island) to clear his head and runs into a recent victim of one of his particularly nasty reviews. Clayton then makes a drunken proclamation that any idiot can make art, followed by an impossible wager. What ensues is a heartwarming tale illustrating how the ability to create art is indeed a gift.

Mr. Art Critic is the fifth full-length feature film by Rich's company Brauer Productions and was filmed in Traverse City and on Mackinac Island. You can learn more about the film and see a trailer at the official site and read about the filming in this article from the Mackinac Island Town Crier.

It's kind of a full-circle thing, as Rich announced the project at the Traverse City Film Festival.

The annual Christmas arts & crafts show will be held on Saturday, December 1, 2007 from 10 am to 4 pm at the Old Art Building in Leland. This year's Merry Marketplace features 18 local artisans with fresh and dried holiday wreaths, herbal soaps and lotions, jewelry, specialty foods, pottery, woven wheat, cards, pillows, kids and American girl doll clothes, and many hand knit items. There's also complimentary cookies and coffee!

Local artisans include Dee Glass, Annie McFarlane, Cheryl Van Zee, Julie Sanco, Mary Turak, Kit Knowles, Kathy Powell, Brenda Reynard, Carrie Hodapp, Sharecare, Victoria Gallup, Ted Gilmer, Bernadette Denoyer, Rebecca Poinsett, Mike Hulbert, Jules Highfield, Charlotte Seeley and Roxanne Wagner.
This event is sponsored by the Leelanau Community Cultural Center. For more information please call 256-2131.

Photo credit: Yule by Duane Romanell. This photo is more than just atmosphere. It has a well crafted essay on the roots Yule that you may find enjoyable. Check it out.

The InsideOut Gallery of Traverse City ( a really cool place to see a show) hosts a pair of great folk artists this week.

On Thursday (Nov 8), Leelanau native and singer-songwriter Emily Lively returns from Kerrville, Texas. The doors open at 6:30 and the show starts at 7:30. Be sure to check out her music over on MySpace.

On Friday evening (same times, same place), folk musician Chuck Suchy brings his "wide-open-spaces voice" to the Gallery. Rod Kennedy, founder of the Kerrville Folk Festival says "If he's not one of the great American songwriters, I don't know who is." Chuck has some music to listen to at the bottom of the "Recording" page!

October is Community Foundation Month in Leelanau County and the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation wants you to know that:

The Community Foundation is home to more than 280 different component funds that benefit a variety of charitable purposes, including community enrichment, cultural arts, environment, and youth and education efforts – offering community residents a variety of choices to support causes that are close to home and close to heart.

Twenty-five funds directly benefit Leelanau County and an additional 86 regional funds also benefit the County, including the Grand Traverse Bay YMCA Fund, Child and Family Services of Northwest Michigan Endowment, and the Youth Services Endowment.

Click over to 4good4ever.org to read articles about how the Community Foundation is benefiting Leelanau and learn how you can support the Community Foundation and many Leelanau organizations through charitable giving.

Photo: Yellow Maple II by Andy McFarlane