education•exhibitions•events

A New Center for the Arts

WEHAVEAVISION…

TheCrystal LakeArtCenter isundertakingacapitalcampaign to raise$2.2milliondollarstorenovatetheoldU.S.CoastGuardStation.Forthefirsttimein50yearsofexistence,weareaskingyou,alongwithfoundationsandgrantors,tobeapartofthisvision.

ThankyoutoElizabethLaneOliver,whosedreamandsteadyleadershiphashelpedbringtheartstoBenzieCountysince1948.Generationsofchildrenandadultshavehadtheopportunitytoexploretheirtalents.

In2000wemovedfromSutterRoadtotheformerNapaAutoPartspolebuildingintheCityofFrankfort.Whilecontemplatingtheremodelingoftheexistingbuilding—ornewconstruction—thecityofferedtheArtCentertheuseoftheoldU.S.CoastGuardStation.Weareprivilegedtohavethislandmarkbuilding,initsbreathtakinglocation,torenovateintoapremierCenterfortheArts.

Wehaveavisioninthetransformationofthishistoricstructure.Personalizedinstructionfulfillsourmissionofeducationinameaningfulway.Youngandoldhavetheopportunitytoenhancecreativeexpression,self-discovery,andself-concept.

•Weseeyoungchildrenlearningnewtalentsbeyondthepublicschoolclassroom. •Weseeyoungfamiliescreatingmodelstosolveanswersfortomorrow. •Weseeoldergenerationsthatneedaplacetogatherforexploration.

CrystalLakeArtCenterneedsyourhelp.Itsfuturedependsonoursharedvisionanddonationstorecognizethepotentialforthisfacility.Thisisyouropportunitytoestablishalastinglegacyofthearts.

Wearea501(c)(3)organizationforyourtax-deductiblecontribution.Pleasegiveasmuchasyoucantobringthisdreamtoreality.

V.RolandRoycraft,AWSHonoraryChairman

ShirleyBishopChairFundraisingAdvisoryCommitteePastPresident,CrystalLakeArtCenter2000–2005

THE CRYSTAL LAKE ART CENTER,IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

THE CITY OF FRANKFORT,HAS LAUNCHED

A PROJECT TO

COAST GUARD STATIONRestore the Historic

In 2004, after 70 years of continuous duty, the United States Coast Guard closed its two-story, red-roofed, stout-as-a-wooden-ship, search and rescue station in Frankfort, Michigan. The crew and operations moved to a modern concrete and steel building next door. For the Coast Guard, which has operated in Betsie Bay since 1886, the move represented the turning of a new page in the long history it has written with the people, vessels, deep waters, and windy northern coast of Lake Michigan. In partnership with the City of Frankfort, which now owns the building, the Crystal Lake Art Center has launched the project to restore the historic Coast Guard Station and convert it to public use as one of northern Michigan’s foremost centers of art education, exhibitions, forums, and events.

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A YEAR-ROUND EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL RESOURCEFOR RESIDENTS AND A DISTINCTIVE DESTINATION FOR TOURISTS

A New Center for the Arts

The $2.2 million capital campaign to renovate the former Coast Guard Station is firmly based in the desires of a thriving community and its most prominent arts organization to gain more space to meet an expanding mission to educate, train, and exhibit the work of adults and school-aged students for public enjoyment. The project is designed to restore and deploy one of the region’s most recognizable buildings as a bridge between the region’s hard-muscle industrial past and the knowledge-based, entrepreneurial, recreational, and creative culture and economy that steadily evolved. The Crystal Lake Art Center has contracted Quinn Evans | Architects, an Ann Arbor-based firm that specializes in restoring and transforming historic properties to new uses, to turn what is essentially a large boat house and crew quarters into a showcase of art education and exhibition. Michael Quinn’s design calls for building two spacious galleries in what is now the boat storage area, carving teaching classrooms from dormitories, studios from dispatch rooms, all of it overlooking some of the rarest and most beautiful freshwater landscapes in the nation—Betsie Bay, the Elberta dunes, and the Lake Michigan shore. The new Center for the Arts is intended to be a year-round educational and cultural resource for area residents and a distinctive cultural destination for tourists. Along with new galleries, classrooms, and studios the Center for the Arts will have space for a gift shop, a snack area, airy porches, and sunny patios blocks from Frankfort’s marinas and active main business district, a very pleasant shoreline stroll away. Cultural tourists who stay overnight have a choice of first-class motel, hotel, and bed and breakfast rooms, fine restaurants, a bakery, and several taverns, all an easy walk from the Center for the Arts. The Quinn Evans design also provides ample flexibility and space so that the center can host weddings, social events, and community meetings.

a showcase of art education and exhibition

A Visible Civic Organization

a showcase of art education and exhibition

The Crystal Lake Art Center, founded in 1948, manages an all-season program of teaching, hands-on instruction, studios, exhibitions, interpretation, and outreach to adults and school-aged students. The breadth of the program and expertise of faculty and staff not only has attracted 600 members (six times the number in 2000), but also has established the Art Center as one of Benzie County’s most visible civic organizations.

The Crystal Lake Art Center manages an equally ambitious program of art instruction during the fall, winter, and spring, which provides art classes to public school students and offers instruction in fine crafts. In addition, the center holds an annual tour of Benzie County artist studios, a downtown Art Walk in Frankfort, regular art auctions, and juried art shows. All told, the Art Center’s curriculum and programs make it among the most active and accomplished non-profit community arts organizations in Michigan.

In a typical summer, for instance, the Art Center offers about 30 art instruction classes for adults—many of them multi-day, in oil, acrylic, and watercolor, ceramics, kiln-fused glass, wire wrap, paper folding, framing, and fabric dyeing. Fifteen more classes are aimed at kids, including calligraphy, painting, nautical folk art, and a four-day art camp for school-aged students.

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Capital Campaign

The center’s development as a community organization accelerated in 2000, when board members voted to move from the organization’s original home on Sutter Road, near Crystal Lake, to a former NAPA Auto Parts store in Frankfort. The more central location, along with the organization’s ability to hire staff, strengthened the instructional and outreach programs. The heightened interest, though, and the organization’s ability to provide first-rate art classes to adults and students, is now at risk because of the lack of space. The Frankfort building, once thought to be more than sufficient, is no longer adequate. The Art Center’s gallery, teaching area, gift shop, and administrative office are packed together. Though students and faculty make do, they recognize the facility is limiting the organization’s reach and effectiveness. The existing space also is a deterrent to recruiting new members and donors.

TRANSFORMING A HISTORIC MARITIME MILITARY INSTALLATION INTO A PLACE OF CIVIC ENERGY and ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT

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TRANSFORMING A HISTORIC MARITIME MILITARY INSTALLATION INTO A PLACE OF CIVIC ENERGY and ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT

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The successful conduct of this capital campaign to raise $2.2 million will establish the new Center for the Arts as a premier community resource, a nexus of art education, and a cultural gathering place for Benzie County and the communities along the northern coast of Lake Michigan. The funds will transform a historic maritime military installation into a place of civic energy and artistic development. The Center for the Arts will have modern, climate-controlled galleries, classrooms, and studios for adults and school-aged students to produce, learn about, and view great art. Its public spaces will attract visitors, community gatherings, weddings, and parties.

ILLUSTRATION BY RON GIANOLA

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bridging an industrial past with today’s creative economy

Convergence of Art, History and Promise

Of all the stretches of sand and water, sun and wind that define Frankfort and Benzie County, none describes this region’s rugged maritime past, or displays its prosperous new economic future, better than the land that lies along the ship channel at the mouth of Betsie Bay. To the east, in the place where the dawn sun comes over the ridge, blue herons and osprey rise out of freshwater marshes that once were choked with logs floated to mills and an iron smelter that operated along the shore. Maple, hemlock, cedar, and pine now cloak the rounded hills of nearby Elberta, where home values and job prospects are rising. Pleasure boats tie up in the harbor, once crowded by a succession of schooners, steamships, coal-fueled railcar ferries, and commercial fishing tugs. Children play at the edge of Lake Michigan, on the very same beach that at the turn of the 20th century briefly supported a passenger rail depot and one of the Midwest’s largest and most luxurious summer hotels. This stretch of land is also the place where the United States Coast Guard built a 9,600-square-foot station on the channel’s north side, room enough to house a crew of 12 men and their rescue boats. The old Coast Guard Station, a study in Depression-era utility and efficiency, has served as a kind of cultural sentinel. It is a seven-decade witness to the remarkable transition that turned a busy industrial and commercial fishing port into a new economy city.

A TERRIFIC NEW EXPERIENCE FOR FRANKFORT, BENZIE COUNTY AND NORTHWEST MICHIGAN

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bridging an industrial past with today’s creative economy

A TERRIFIC NEW EXPERIENCE FOR FRANKFORT, BENZIE COUNTY AND NORTHWEST MICHIGAN

It is here, on this stretch of sand and sweet water sea, in this historic building, that the Crystal Lake Art Center plans to open the new Center for the Arts. Just as Betsie Bay and the Lake Michigan coast offer natural graces to residents and visitors, the Center for the Arts provides genuine economic and cultural value. It will serve as another civic focal point for a 21st century community that takes pride in stewardship, stresses artistic expression, prizes entrepreneurialism, and is devoted to ensuring a superior quality of life.

Those values are producing terrific new experiences for Frankfort, Benzie County, and the rest of northwest Michigan. A steady flow of talented, hard-working, educated, and creative people are settling in Benzie County. Median incomes are rising. Rates of joblessness and poverty are falling. New homes are being constructed at record rates, yet there is a deep will in the community to conserve the rare qualities that make Frankfort and Benzie County so attractive—the safe and friendly small towns, the clean rivers, the miles of Great Lakes coast, and the sense that you matter and belong.

The arts education, exhibitions, sales, and cultural tourism promoted by the Center for the Arts adds to Benzie County’s reputation as an enriching place to be. The dollars and cents that flow from visitors is a vital resource for the county’s economic health. Teaching, producing, exhibiting, and marketing art is an important segment of northern Michigan’s new economy and culture. The new Center for the Arts, a modern arts education and exhibition facility housed in a historic building on Betsie Bay and the Frankfort ship channel, will immediately enhance the region’s well-being.

PIECES CREATED BY (L to R): RON GIANOLA, PAM YEE, LORIE WOODS, ELAINE LARSON, MEG LOUWSMA

Dear Friend,

Thank you for taking time to learn about our campaign to convert the historic Frankfort Coast Guard Station into a premier center to teach, perform, and exhibit great art.

There is a role for all of us in making sure this project is a success. One role we’ve embraced is to invite you to make a generous gift to ensure that the new Center for the Arts quickly becomes a vital part of the economic and artistic landscape of Benzie County and northwest Michigan.

The Center for the Arts represents an extraordinary convergence of opportunity, culture, and place. Over the last five years, we’ve watched energetic people who are interested in the arts create special experiences. The new Center for the Arts builds on that enthusiasm. The new center allows youths and seniors, dabblers and professionals, strong supporters and curious newcomers to come together and celebrate the importance of art in their lives.

Benzie County and this entire region benefits from appreciating and participating in art. Our experiences will only grow richer with a beautiful, modern, welcoming center to serve as this area’s artistic hub.

We invite you to join us in building the Center for the Arts. Your financial support is essential to help meet our goal of raising $2.2 million to transform Frankfort’s old Coast Guard Station into classrooms, galleries, and meeting spaces where everyone can enjoy the benefits of art.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss this project with you. Please call us at 231-352-4151, or email clartcenter@sbcglobal.net.

Yours Truly,

Lee HarperExecutive Director

Susan BurksPresident, Board of Directors

CrystalLakeArtCenter•111-10thSt.•POBox1513•Frankfort,MI49635•231.352.4151

website:www.CrystalLakeArtCenter.org•email:clartcenter@sbcglobal.net

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