Summit Schedule
THURSDAY · MAY 14
Registration
12:00 PM · Hotel Indigo
Stop by the registration table to check in with our volunteers, get your registration packet and name badge.
Welcome Session
1:00 PM · Hotel Indigo
Gather together with your peers to celebrate the start of a truly meaningful two days together. Hear from NWMIARTS leadership on why what you do is important, and how to make the most of our time together.
Creating Upstream: Centering Placemaking as Community Development.
1:30 PM · Hotel Indigo
Come prepared with a real challenge or stalled idea from your community — whether it’s access to public space, funding barriers, development pressure, or artist underpayment. In this 90-minute working session, you’ll identify the “current” you’re navigating and design a tangible project to push upstream. Together, we’ll map stakeholders, outline next steps, explore funding pathways, and refine your message. You’ll leave with a clear concept, strategy, and momentum.
Facilitator: Hannah Berry, Lions & Rabbits
Finding Your Current
1:30 PM · Hotel Indigo
FINDING YOUR CURRENT interactive workshop is about slowing down and trusting in one’s spontaneous creative process, and having fun. Participants will have hands-on experiences finding their creative current through a progressive series of guided artistic tasks designed to encourage curiosity and wonder. Participants will be responding to sounds and movements of improvised double bass music and modern dance. May participants experience new currents of effortless creative energy emerging from within themselves.
Facilitator: Paul Erhard / Time Art Space Art
Thursday Artist Talks
Ten incredible artists will be presenting on their work, inspiration, process, or exploration. These insightful talks are a wonderful way to get inside the mind of a creator.
Artist Talks will take place both Thurday and Friday in a 45-minute rotation during the breakout hours.
Johnny Camacho: Creative Response in Times of Trauma
1:30 PM
Finding alternative practices in my journeys and methods to generate new ideas and solutions. I achieve this through exercise, life experiences which breaks convention and explore new avenue to create Art.
Lindy Bishop: Artist: The Ultimate Provider
2:15 PM
In a society that equates “providing” strictly with a traditional paycheck, choosing a career in art is often seen as swimming against a relentless current. But what if the artist has always been the tribe’s most essential provider?
Join Traverse City artist Lindy Bishop as she dismantles the “starving artist” myth. Drawing on her experience as a solo parent who has provided for her three children while progressing towards a full-time art career, Lindy explores how artists help their communities see, seek, and find life-sustaining elements. From the cave walls of our ancestors to her own modern-day international residencies, she offers a roadmap for those struggling to balance family responsibility with creative pursuit. Learn how to reclaim your role as a provider of richness—both financial and foundational—in your family, your community, and the world.
Jerry Gretzinger: The Accidental Artist
3:00 PM
Jerry Gretzinger didn’t set out to become an artist, but ended up one anyway. In 1963, when he started a small doodle in his spare time at a tedious job, he never would have imagined that 60 years later this same map would be exhibited in museums and galleries across the world. Hear Jerry tell his story about the key principals that have guided his creative practice and life.
Lindsay Greer: Creating Performance that Resists Narrative Closure
3:45 PM
What do silent film, ruin photography, talking to spirits, VCRs, 16mm films, girl scouts, witches, and the printing press have in common? Not a lot on the surface...but all played a role in developing the characters for the show, Toil & Rubble: Media in Ruins, that formed the centerpiece for Dr. Lindsay Greer's dissertation. Come hear about devised theatre as one creative process for pulling together disparate strands of media, history, and performance.
Schooling for Arts Organizations, Teaching Artists, and Educators
3:30 PM · Hotel Indigo
Schooling involves highly synchronized movement: many fish moving at the same speed, same direction, turning all at once. This workshop-style session will provide strategies for increasing access to quality arts education through synchronized use of arts resources. We will focus on developing innovative school partnerships, enhancing K-12 student engagement with community arts organizations and teaching artists, and improving data collection and resource coordination. You will leave with actionable ideas for expanding access to arts education.
Facilitator: Amy Lynne Pobanz, MI Creative Potential
Audience Over Algorithm: The Independent Artist's Guide to Substack
3:30 PM · Hotel Indigo
In a digital landscape shaped by shifting algorithms, owning your audience is essential. This session explores why every artist should build an email newsletter, how Substack works, and how to set up your own account. You'll leave with a clear strategy for building direct relationships with collectors and supporters - and the confidence to start immediately.
Facilitator: Katherine Corden, Independent Artist
Registration & Happy Hour
5:00 PM · City Opera House
Check in at the registration table on the second floor landing at City Opera House. Enjoy cash bar and make some new friends.
Thursday Keynote: Omari Rush
6:00 PM · City Opera House
We open the Summit at the historic City Opera House with a keynote from Omari Rush, a leading voice in arts and cultural leadership. Drawing from his work across Michigan and beyond, Omari will speak to the power of the arts to shape communities, strengthen connection, and move us forward—together.
This session sets the tone for the days ahead, grounding us in both possibility and responsibility. Performances woven throughout will help us enter the Summit energized, present, and ready to engage.
Performances by: SkyeLea, TC Trombones, Song of the Lakes, Full Tilt Comedy
Mentor Sessions: One-on-One Guidance for Your Creative Journey
Thursday & Friday · Hotel Indigo
Looking for personalized advice to advance your artistic practice or cultural work? Sign up for a 30-minute, one-on-one session with an experienced mentor from our curated roster. Whether you're seeking feedback on a project, career guidance, or insights into the arts and culture sector, these sessions offer a unique opportunity to connect directly with seasoned professionals. Spaces are limited; be sure to reserve your spot when registering.
Mentors: Omari Rush, Juana Williams, Laura Zabel, Katherine Corden Bellisario, Julie Hay, Sam Charnes, Jamie Caldwell, Whitney Waara, Amy Gillard, Glenn Wolff, Cindy Leo, Kristina Schnepf
GET SOCIAL AT SURFACES
Surfaces Art Supplies will host us for an evening reception. Optional for all, but attendance is encouraged as a way to build deeper relationships with your creative peers.
Details coming soon.
FRIDAY · May 15
Fuel Up & Find Your People
8:00 AM · City Opera House
Enjoy complimentary coffee while making new connections and finding old friends from our creative community.
Morning Keynote: Laura Zabel
9:00 AM · City Opera House
Laura Zabel brings a perspective shaped by her work supporting artists and creative communities nationwide.
This morning session offers a moment to reconnect and continue the experience together. Performances throughout help ease us into the day and carry a sense of connection forward.
Performances by: Ruby John, The World's a Stage / Lakeside Shakespeare, Sandbox Ensemble
Share Your Craft on the Folk School Circuit
11:00 AM · Hotel Indigo
Northwest Michigan is home to one of the newest folk schools in the country—Green Door Folk School—a hands-on, community-based adult learning environment for traditional and contemporary skills. We, like dozens of other folk schools across the country, contract with artists, artisans and experts to teach traditional skills, hand crafts and art to curious learners. In this session you will learn about the folk school movement, how to become an instructor on the folk school "circuit" and how to grow your following and business with the folk school audience.
Come learn how you can help folk schools enrich communities, and connect people to their natural environments, their bodies, and one another.
Facilitator: Kristina Schnepf, Green Door Folk School
The Practice of Self-Publishing
11:00 AM - Hotel Indigo
Self-publishing is often framed as a fallback—but what if it’s a channel of its own? In this workshop, we’ll explore self-publishing as a creative and relational practice for artists and writers who want to move outside traditional systems. We’ll look at zines, newsletters, books, and digital forms as ways of making contact. This is about building your own channels, trusting your instincts, and letting your work travel—on your terms, against the current.
Facilitator: Cody Cook-Parrott, Author / Artist
Collaborating with and for our Neurodivergent and Disabled Neighbors
1:30 PM · Hotel Indigo
Following the closure of a key arts organization serving the disabled community, others are stepping in to meet the need.
This panel explores collaborative, adaptive approaches to expanding arts access for neurodivergent and disabled community members.
Panelists: Lora Frankel, Jamie Bell, Lesley Tye
Making People Care: How to Talk About Your Work So It Connects
1:30 PM · Hotel Indigo
Many artists and arts organizations can clearly explain their mission but struggle to communicate the real impact of their work. In this interactive workshop, participants will learn a simple framework for describing what they do in ways that feel clear, human, and meaningful. Through guided exercises, attendees will refine how they talk about their work, their audience, and why it matters, leaving with language they can immediately use in conversations, websites, and marketing materials.
Facilitator: Marivi Bryant, HOME Agency
The Role of the Arts in Mental Health
3:00 PM · Hotel Indigo
Artists and arts organizations are increasingly engaging with mental health—both in their own work and in the communities they serve.
This panel explores the role of the arts in supporting mental well-being, highlighting approaches, partnerships, and perspectives that connect creative practice with care.
Panelists: Kari de Boer, others TBD
Workshop TBD
3:00 PM · Hotel Indigo
Stay tuned!
Facilitator: TBD
Friday Artist Talks
Artist Talks continue on Friday in a 45-minute rotation during the breakout hours.
Dr. Libor Ondras: From Unknown to Unforgettable: Introducing New Repertoire Through Narrative Programming
11:00 AM
Programming new and unfamiliar repertoire presents both artistic opportunity and practical challenge for orchestras seeking to remain vibrant and relevant. This presentation explores strategies for introducing audiences to lesser-known works through thoughtful, theme-driven programming that highlights compelling historical, cultural, and human stories behind the music. By framing concerts around meaningful narratives, orchestras can create deeper connections between repertoire, performers, and audiences, transforming unfamiliar works into engaging and memorable experiences.
Drawing on practical examples from orchestral programming, the talk will address how artistic vision can be balanced with audience expectations, organizational realities, and community context. Particular attention will be given to overcoming common obstacles—such as resistance to unfamiliar repertoire, institutional constraints, and resource limitations—while maintaining artistic integrity. The presentation will also consider how orchestras can remain responsive to contemporary issues and evolving audience interests without losing sight of their core mission. Ultimately, this session offers insights into how creative programming and storytelling can help orchestras expand their repertoire, strengthen audience engagement, and sustain cultural relevance in a changing artistic landscape.
Natalie Wetzel: Quilt to Quantum: Systems of Story and Matter
11:45 AM
From fractured plates to quantum narratives, this talk traces a path between home and cosmos. Natalie Wetzel explores how craft, memory, and popular imagery can be reassembled into living systems - sculptures and stories that evolve through connection and participation. Moving between the intimate and the infinite, the work invites us to see creativity as a shared field where matter and meaning continuously transform.
Seven Sisters: Frame Drums: Envisioning the Future Trhough Visions of the Past
1:00 PM
This session will explore the evolution of the frame drum, humanity’s oldest known instrument, through the lens of applying this ancient technology to our modern lives. Global origins of the instrument will be discussed, from the humble grain sieve to the modern tambourine. Archeological and contemporary mythologies will also be presented. Seven Sisters will share a small sampling of the practiced knowledge kept alive as practitioners of this ancient instrument.
Ellen Rutt: For Now
1:45 PM
In a culture addicted to acceleration, Ellen Rutt chooses slowness on purpose—not as escape, but as a way of paying closer attention. Her work, spanning large-scale paintings, textiles, and a hand-built straw cabin, unfolds through time, labor, and collaboration. In each project, the process isn't preparation for the work; it is the work. This talk is an argument for tending carefully to what's here, right now. For making things slowly, together, in full awareness of what's at stake.
Dewey Blocksma: Oasis Art
2:30 PM
Harnessing the energy of an idea in three dimensions using found and fashioned objects.
Artist #10 TBD
3:15 PM
Closing Keynote Session: Juana Williams
6:30 PM · City Opera House
Juana Williams closes the day with a perspective informed by her work as a curator and writer engaging contemporary art and cultural memory. This evening session creates space to gather, reflect, and take in the experience together.
Performers: Crystal Wood-Turner, Seven Sisters
Socialize: Enjoy cash bar in the Lobby before the session.