The Green Room

Spencer McQueen says looking at his art isn’t enough. He wants you to feel his paintings.

“It’s just this little extra ability that you can give someone to connect with you and the things that you created,” he says.

In the early 1800’s, American painter Edward Hicks began painting “Peaceable Kingdom," a series of 62 paintings inspired by a verse in the book of Isaiah.

The verse says, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.” 

In Traverse City, two different art galleries are bringing that concept to the art world.

For the last 10 years, Karen Anderson has been writing weekly essays heard on Interlochen Public Radio.

The essays are vivid, personal, and relatable. Karen takes time to notice the little details and experiences of everyday life.

Michael Moore has hired Joe Beyer as the new executive director for his Traverse City Film Festival. Joe replaces Deb Lake, who resigned last December.

“It’s like we found our long-lost soul brother here for Traverse City in the being of Joe Beyer,” says Michael.

Joe Beyer returns home to Michigan after working for the Sundance Institute for over 14 years.

A couple years ago, Chris Andrews, a senior at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, realized he was addicted to his smartphone.

“It was something I was using as a crutch,” he explains. “Something that I was using in moments of boredom, moments of anxiety, or a moment of silence in a group of friends – we’d all reach for our phones.”

Ambrosia Sipping Chocolate is a brand new, gourmet hot chocolate that’s made in Traverse City. It hits the market on April 15th.

“It’s literally like you’re drinking chocolate bars because that’s exactly what it is,” says co-owner Matt Shepler.

The Dennos Museum in Traverse City has almost three-thousand works of art in its collection.

At any given time, around 280 of those works are on display, including Inuit sculptures, contemporary paintings and modern photographs.

But on April 14th, the museum wants visitors to ignore most of these works and just focus on a handful of them.  

Edward Beebe was a popular photographer in northern Michigan in the early 1900s. He created postcards with his photos but often deceived people regarding the location of the shots.

“I think a lot of these cards were intended to take advantage of tourists and visitors,” says local author Jack Hobey.

The Boardman Review is a quarterly publication founded by brothers Nick and Chris Loud. 

They recently published their third issue, a winter edition.

When Anders Kelto listened to sports podcasts, what he usually heard was a couple of guys sitting around bantering with each other.

“There was no good audio sports journalism in the world, at least that I had been exposed to,” he says.

Anders is changing that. Today, the Traverse City native is out with his own podcast —it’s a sports documentary series.

Parallel 45 Theatre is about to try something new.

The professional theatre company started in Traverse City seven years ago and typically produces three to four shows throughout the year.

Next year, the company wants to produce more shows, for more people. 

Jeremy Reisig, better known as brotha James, is a one-man band from Elk Rapids.

He’ll do all sorts of things — beatbox, play the guitar, rap, sing — sometimes all in the same song. He’s able to do all that because he often loops his own music tracks.

Michael Cleveland has been called “one of the premier fiddle players of his generation, if not in all of bluegrass history.”

He's also been completely blind since birth.

The Ford Mustang from the 1968 film “Bullitt” is currently on display at the Hagerty Insurance in Traverse City.

When "The Soldier's Tale" premiered in 1918, an influenza epidemic cut short it's European performance tour.

Ironically, the flu caused some problems for Interlochen Arts Academy students as they practiced for the show earlier this year.

A well-known horse whisperer has passed away in northern Michigan. Alex MacLellan was the owner of H&H Stables in Leelanau County.

Songwriter and producer Luis Resto says other music scenes are more polished than Detroit, but that’s one reason why the Motor City is so special to him.  

“Detroit has this street grit, what we call ‘stank,’” he says. “Which is good.”

Next week, the movie based on Doug Stanton’s book ‘Horse Soldiers’ will hit theaters nationwide. It’s about a small group of Special Forces who rode horses to fight the Taliban.

“It’s a Western with lasers,” says Doug.

Pines of Arcadia. That’s the name of a new artist residency and studio north of Manistee. The studio is built into a sand dune and surrounded by pine trees.

Judy Jashinsky is the owner and came with the idea to start the residency.

It’s gameday in Denver.

Before the Broncos start playing football, players are announced as they sprint onto the field through a smoke-filled tunnel shaped like three wild, galloping horses.

The "Oxford Junior Dictionary" is aimed at kids seven and up. It’s not meant to be a comprehensive book – that’s why it has a limited space for word entries.

So, when the publishers added words like "analog," "broadband" and "chatroom" – other words like "ash," "beech" and "crocus" got the boot.

For the last 10 years, Karen Anderson has been writing weekly essays heard on Interlochen Public Radio.

The essays are vivid, personal, and relatable. Karen takes time to notice the little details and experiences of everyday life.

Next week, Traverse City artist Rufus Snoddy goes to the Super Bowl of the modern art world.

“This is one of the best opportunities I’ve had in my life,” he says.

Rufus is a part of Miami Art Week. It brings galleries and high-end collectors from all over the world to south Florida.

Take a look at a list of top podcasts today and one thing is very clear: murder is big.

Podcasts like “Dirty John,” “Someone Knows Something,” and a show from ABC News called “A Killing on the Cape,” often focus on the graphic details of murder. Currently, they rank higher on iTunes than shows like “Fresh Air,” “Radiolab” and “The Ted Radio Hour.”

Edward Beebe was a popular photographer in northern Michigan in the early 1900s. He created postcards with his photos but often deceived people regarding the location of the shots.

“I think a lot of these cards were intended to take advantage of tourists and visitors,” says local author Jack Hobey.