Secret Garden Guitar Series

Saturday Afternoons 4-7 pm

Join us in the secret art garden for boutique wines, artful picnics & live music performed by local guitarists.   

Visiting Artist Eddie Mitchell

June 26, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with painter Eddie Mitchell. Mitchell has a Bachelor of Fine Art from Cleveland Institute of Art, and now teaches at both the Cleveland Institute of Art and Lakeland Community College. His use of color is extravagant and euphoric. He focuses on the florals, water, and sky, that bring him joy in everyday life.

Visiting Artist Larry Welo

June 26, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with printmaker Larry Welo. Welo was born in 1951 and grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota on the iron range.  He studied art and biology while a student at Luther College in Iowa.  Determined to work professionally as an artist, he decided to focus on etching and after graduating from Luther in 1974 began his art career. Northeastern Iowa is a visually stimulating place and living there he studied the things around him. Welo’s studio is located in an old Opera House in a small community in southern Wisconsin. 

Visiting Artist Chris Cox

July 3, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with glass artist Chris Cox. Chris was in Italy visiting the island of Murano when he first saw glass blowing up close. When he returned, he took a weekend course in glass blowing. As he researched glass he discovered glass fusing and built a studio to start experimenting. “I love the ability to cut the glass, fuse and then form or cast it into almost any shape, and finally manipulating it through cold work processes into the final piece of art or jewelry. I have always been fascinated with linear forms and design and you will see that in almost all of my art and jewelry.” 

Visiting Artist Kim Zahnow

July 3, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Local Saugatuck-Douglas professional photographer and Encaustics artist Kim Zahnow. Kim blends beeswax resin shellac and pigments until they come to life under her torch. Unlike other paints, encaustic is never wet or dry.  It goes from a liquid to a solid-state and back again in seconds, allowing additional layers to be added immediately. 

Visiting Artist Nina Weiss

July 10, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Nina Weiss a nationally renowned artist who has been painting and drawing the landscape for over 40 years.  She holds a BFA from the Tyler School of Art and graduate study at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  Further study includes pre-college instruction at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Art Students’ League of New York.  Her work is held in private and corporate collections throughout the United States including United Airlines, Aetna Insurance, McDonald's, Eli Lilly, Avon, and United States Customs. 

Visiting Artist Salem Barker

July 17, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Sculptor Salem Barker. Barker often describes his sculptures as a contemporary interpretation of the inherent beauty designed into the natural world. Perfect sculptural composition is witnessed in any basic flower, for instance, and the characteristics and composition arouse his will to explore the forms himself. A single detail can translate into an entire, lone object.

Visiting Artist Sherri Denault

July 24, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with fiber artist Sherri Denault. Denault works intuitively creating patterns and textures that often resemble something found in nature through the use of mixed media. The work is often inspired by the curiosity of a specific medium and the discovery of pushing its limits. Embellishments of thread, stitching, or knots are added to slow the process-driven work, a meditation of sorts.  The artwork becomes a sensory experience for the viewer and an invitation to question what lies just below the surface of perception. 

Visiting Artist Marti Liddle-Lameti

July 24, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with fiber artist and fashion maker Marti Liddle-Lameti. Marti Liddle-Lameti is an internationally recognized fiber & textile artist creating two-dimensional fiber “paintings”, as well as three-dimensional wearable art. Her work can be seen in private, as well as public collections including Memorial Healthcare of Owosso. 

Visiting Artist Chuck Parsons

July 31, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with painter Chuck Parsons. Taking dramatic steps to represent color and form, Chuck's work is the touchstone of abstract and regional impressionism.  He paints loosely, Alla Prima which translates literally to All At Once!  Chuck juxtaposes colors in short choppy brush strokes and color harmony is the essential element in his work. The brushwork is the most important, perhaps more so than the subject or the composition.  

Visiting Artist Kathleen Newman

July 31, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with painter Kathleen Newman. Inspired by the turn of the century Impressionists and Tonalists, Kathleen paints in the Plein-air tradition, creating small studies on location and then working larger paintings in her studio.  She strives to capture the certain mood of the moment and bring that subtle nuance to the painting, the color, light, and shapes that help create a sense of place.  Kathleen continues to be inspired by sailing on Lake Michigan,  walks through the city near her studio, and enjoying nature close to home at the beautiful Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  

Visiting Artist Steve Griggs

August 7, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with watercolor painter Steve Griggs. Steve's earliest influences and inspirations came from the Great Lakes region where he grew up. Throughout his lifetime he has been enamored of boats. Sailing vessels, lake freighters, military frigates; any type of boat has captured his imagination. Although Steve has resided in Colorado for many years, his paintings often reflect his love of the Great Lakes, fostered by frequent trips to his hometown near Detroit, Northern Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Visiting Artist Ann Feldman

August 7, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Ann Feldman. Born and raised in New Orleans, Ann is a painter and art instructor who has lived much of her life in Barrington, Illinois. Painting in an impressionistic style with subjects that depict calm, Ann’s hushed backgrounds play with the abstract and the painting's primary subject depicts realism. This sharp contrast between soft and crisp is uniquely created. Her treatment of shadows helps to blend the realism with the abstract. Many of Ann’s pieces are painted in a loose style where her brush strokes are blended with very thick paint applied with palette knives to achieve an exciting, light-filled contrast. 

Visiting Artist Roger Blair

August 14, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with artist Roger Blair. Painting subjects that express textures and details of rural life stories while working in egg tempera allows Blair to extend his passion for drawing into a paint medium. Blair's paintings are of areas he has walked, knows, and loves deeply in his soul. He depicts the incredible textures and details that portray real rural life stories.  Big old barns, fields of hay, and rolling hills of farmland are captured in the greatest detail. 

Visiting Artist Matthew Swanson

August 21, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with local painter Matthew Swanson. Swanson's work is improvisational. While not always obvious all of Swanson's pieces are landscapes. He starts with an idea fragment and it takes its own path. Along the way, he often finds that he must become a problem solver while trying to wrangle the ideas back into some kind of form. Using collage as a tool he brings the smaller landscapes into a larger format. It helps to simplify the forms and frees him from the trap of ‘local color’. Though more abstract, the landscape still lies beneath. 

Visiting Artist Kimberly Beck

August 28, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Kimberly Beck. Kimberly Beck is a fine artist who specializes in painting birds. After graduating from The University of Michigan with a degree in English Literature, she studied drawing and illustration at The California College of Arts and Crafts. As an illustrator, she created bird-themed products for The Nature Company and other print companies that sold her work nationally. Her avian-themed paintings have been juried into the prestigious international “Birds in Art” exhibition at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum of Art, Wausau, Wisconsin, selected for the museum’s National Tours, and are part of the Museum’s permanent collection.

Visiting Artist John Andersen

August 28, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with local artist John Andersen.  John is an American realist painter living in West Michigan. His central themes are change and memory. Painting in the transient and ephemeral qualities of the light and atmosphere in the changing seasons with waxing or waning light. He has abandoned the use of photographic reference and Plein-air painting in favor of his own memory and imagination. John says this leads him to a more personal and expressive view of the landscape. He does not seek to record a specific place, instead he expresses a poetic vision of the world. He paints in the style of the old masters. John is truly an old soul in the body of a young man.

Visiting Artist Jill Stefani Wagner

September 4, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with avid Plein-air painter Jill Stefani Wagner. Inspired by the American landscape and that of her beloved Italy. Wagner finds her greatest joy painting on location, taking in the atmosphere, temperature, sounds, and smells, as well as the view. She participates in national Plein-air festivals, traveling throughout the country to capture the uniqueness of each venue. Wagner’s artwork has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the country and is included in many corporate and private collections. Her paintings have been juried into prestigious national and international oil and pastel exhibits, and have been honored with multiple awards.

Visiting Artist Laura Testé

September 11, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with bronze artist Laura Testé. Laura produces bronze figurative sculptures and impressionist oil paintings.  Her sculptures recognize the athlete in the female form.  Recent figures embody the strength and beauty of dancers inspired by Richard McDonald. She offers agile figurative bronzes to be the siren call, the crescendo cymbal crash, or the quiet concluding couplet. She is immersed in the beauty of the female form. The flow of muscle, bone, and material is a confluence of elegance and power.  As a former collegiate athlete, she appreciates the attention, rigor, and control required of dancers and athletes.  

Visiting Artist Mike Barret Kolasinski

September 11, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with nationally recognized pastelist and acclaimed award-winning artist Mike Barret Kolasinski. His work can be found in numerous private and public collections. Kolasinski was selected as a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America, achieving the Master Circle status with the International Association of Pastel Societies and attaining the Master Circle Member status of the Paint America Association.  Mike co-founded the Chicago Pastel Painters, serving as a Board Member and accomplished Master Member. Having studied Illustration and Design at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, he is largely self-taught in his current career of producing fine art paintings. 

Visiting Artist Brian Sauerland

September 11, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Brian Sauerland. The array of colors and values that the human eye can perceive is amazing. The inspiration and hopes that mankind will take more time to notice and appreciate the beauty of things in everyday life, is in each of Sauerland's works. Whether it is a piece of fruit in a basket or a sunset casting a long shadow of a tree across the snow, there is beauty everywhere, and Sauerland enjoys the art of capturing it in his snapshots of life.

Great Lakes Pastel Society 

Small Works Members Exhibition Reception

September 18, 4-7 pm

Join us for an exhibition opening and reception with the members of the Great Lakes Pastel Society. 

Visiting Artist Mike Kelly

September 25, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Mike Kelly. For Mike, painting is about resistance and persistance.  Each piece goes through a series of changes and refinements that may take days or months and evolves from a combination of direct observation, photo reference, memory and most of all invention. His color studies often lead to a series of the same subject, each variation evoking a different emotional response from the viewer. He comes by this process naturally and judiciously, which he learned throughout a long and successful career in graphic design and product packaging design. 

Visiting Artist Mary Hatch

October 9, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Mary Hatch.  Her work begins with little forgotten fragments of life unintentionally stored in our memories. These insignificant remembrances are explored in her paintings forming familiar narratives as if they have always existed. The main subject is apparent. The subtle stroke of the brush brings out the hidden intuitive past and blends it to form a statement. Hatch has been painting for many years and has developed a style that is very recognizable and sought after. Her ability is to tell a story with her imagery in a style reminiscent of dreams. She paints as a novelist might start their story.  

Visiting Artist Linda Rzoska

October 9, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Linda Rzoska. Linda’s process, like her spirit, has many layers.  She uses material like graphite pencil, touche, and wax to create her layered and mystical pieces. The imagery in the artwork is meant to represent a sense of life with no limitations of space and time, a sharing of spirit, mind, and heart, spiritual recognition and belonging, a joining in an ancient and eternal way.  Her current work is inspired by her interest in nature, folklore, mythology, and comparative religions. An attempt to visually communicate this spirit or soul of a place that has been witnessed along with the human collective relationship with the landscape.

Visiting Artist Debra Reid Jenkins

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with Debra Reid Jenkins. As a painter, Debra's goal is to capture with paint specific moments in time on canvas. Ideally that canvas will behave more like a doorway than simply an object on the wall. Her original training was in portraiture with a strong emphasis on traditional skills and techniques sometimes referred to as academic training. The portrait work led to a career in illustration which she did for several years. During this time she was also learning to paint en plein air taking her easel and paints out on location in all kinds of weather. Her background in figurative work shaped her approach to the landscape, which has always been a kind of portrait of place and time. Having learned what makes a person's face uniquely theirs, she uses those same observational skills in the landscape.    

Visiting Artist Jenny Martin 

June 12, 4-7 pm

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with artist Jenny Martin.  Jenny's designs emphasize vivid eye-catching custom-made glazes. She imbues each form with a soft subtle motion inspired by water and waves. She makes both large-scale decorative vases and wall art, as well as high-end unique functional wares. The appreciation for symmetry and line is present in every piece and the inspiration is drawn from classical Greek vessels. 

Visiting Artist Rein Vanderhill

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with artist Rein Vanderhill. Rein paints greatly enlarged compositions of small natural forms, mostly fruits, and flowers. They then become monumental and dramatic demanding close examination. They refuse to be ignored because he uses high contrasts and intense colors focusing on the unusual shapes of the shadows on the leaves. The paintings of these natural forms and of the shoreline scenes of Lake Michigan will sometimes carry titles of names of dance forms or musical notations because my compositions imply motion and rhythm.  Even though they can look photographic from a distance when approached show a liquid motion and dancing paint-strokes.   

Visiting Artist Dylan Strzynski

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with artist Dylan Strzynski. Strzynski is a Michigan artist whose mixed media work combines drawing, painting, and influence from his background in printmaking. He is inspired by the woody marine landscape of the north where he grew up and the area surrounding his home in rural western Washtenaw County. Focusing on landscape and vernacular architecture, his work addresses concerns about the environment and poverty by telling stories characterized by mystery and subtle humor.   

Visiting Artist Helen Gotlib

Join us for a meet & greet and demonstration with printmaker Helen Gotlib. A lifetime interest in art led Helen to study at the University of Michigan's School of Art & Design where she divided her time between printmaking and scientific illustration. This led her to develop a process-oriented drawing style characterized by extreme detail.  Most recently, Gotlib is immersed in an extensive exploration of botanicals. By following the life cycle of flora, but focusing particularly on dried, dead flowers she has managed to create images of unexpected beauty and power.  

Visiting Artist Sheila Grant

Prior to her life as an artist, Grant was a social worker. Social work entails understanding and exploring emotions, which is what ultimately led her to art. Her process as an artist is deeply personal. It explores her inner, wordless dialogue and feelings, and uses the canvas as a visual record of that process. The creative process serves as a vehicle for reflection and transformation, allowing what is within to flow outside and onto the canvas. Grant's medium of choice has changed over time but a consistent theme in all her work is emotional expression, energy, and the exploration of mood through color.