Outsider Art from the Writing Studio and Bait Shop

Posted on August 8, 2009

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Over at the Jordan River Arts Council in East Jordan a new show opens on Sunday, August 9. It will be a “soft opening” as the reception will not take place until the following Saturday, but that gives you an opportunity to sneak over and see the show now so that you can contribute sparkling bits to the conversation at the party later on. I hope you will go, too, because I have no idea what to expect, and I always think that’s interesting.  Besides, well, you’re in the show.

Rooting Deep, Branching Out, juried by Glen Wolff, asks, “What do we know about place? How do we understand place through art? What does it mean to live up north?”

Rooting Deep, Branching Out

Artists working in any medium (including writing) were invited to offer some answers. It crossed my mind to submit Torch Lake Views as an entry, but I couldn’t get a handle on how that would work.  Well.  In spite of my inability to figure it all out, Babs Young tells me that Brad and Amanda Kik have listed this blog in the Rooting Deep, Branching Out catalog.  What that means is that all of you are—TA-DAH!—collaborators in an authentic work of art.  Take a bow.  

It makes me very happy to be included, and I hope you get a kick out of it too. The Cowboy and Miss Sadie are delirious.  We have decided that it is difficult to classify our particular approach to artism, but we are most likely Outsider Artists.

When I started Torch Lake Views back in the winter of 2007-2008 I described our little township in About us. I had in mind writing a sort of online community newspaper: social notes, local history, the shenanigans of the Township Board, interesting things to do, people to meet, places to go . . . and food, of course.  Along the way, readers began to contribute stories, comments, and wonderful photos: 

  • Personal, deeply-felt stories—a family cottage on Torch Lake, a centennial farm, a love story, an obituary—so many of them that they deserved links on a page of their own, and Ourstory was born
  • Weekly photos by Babs Young, including Christmas at the Ellsworth Farmers Exchange
  • The sheer loveliness of Katherine Berst’s flowers and landscapes and her humorous take in Nose to nose 
  • Bruce Laidlaw’s pileated woodpecker and weather station tales and updates on Barnes Park
  • Donna Lane’s cars and buildings and planes at the Torchport Fathers Day Fly-in
  • Katy Newman’s musings from Bayview Farm: garlic scapes, camels, attack flies, and a baby robin
  • The collective shoot about local landmarks: How else shall I say I love you to a place?
  • And the comments from readers in Torch Lake Township and Central Lake and Charlevoix and Elk Rapids and Petoskey and Traverse City and Northport and East Jordan and Boyne City and the Upper Peninsula and Detroit and New York and Pennsylvania and California and Florida and Kansas and northern England and Canberra and Nova Scotia and Denmark and . . . there are days the comments are a lot more interesting than the posts

That collaboration enriches the whole enterprise, challenging me to dig deeper, reach out more.  Together we document the turn of the seasons and celebrate all things local—foods, landscapes, artists, the issues that beset our township democracy—and daytrips all over the place, because travel is broadening.  Thanks to all of you, we have roots and branches around here, which is a good thing, because that’s where the food comes from, and we are fond of food.

Rooting Deep, Branching Out is sponsored by the Jordan River Arts Council and ISLAND.

I’ve already blown having this post scanned by Google, as there are far too many links, so what the heck, in for a penny in for a pound. These are some of my favorite Torch Lake Views entries, in no particular order at all:

Posted in: Everything else on Torch Lake Views