Meet the Artists: Twisted Fish Gallery

Seven creators share their work

After 24 years, Elk Rapids’ Twisted Fish Gallery remains a magnet for collectors and art aficionados thanks to its cohort of mostly regional fine artists producing exceptional paintings, sculpture, mosaics, ceramics, jewelry, furniture, and more, in a range of styles and price points.

Twisted Fish was the dream of retired Chicagoans Robert and Charlotte Streit, who purchased the historical two-acre site in 2000. These enthusiastic collectors assembled a cohort of 50-plus fine artists; some have been with the gallery for years, some since its beginning, but there are always newer additions in the lineup as well.

“We welcome a few select artists each season,” explains daughter and current manager Liz Streit, mostly those “offering a medium or expression not currently found [here.]”

Streit says her parents “did not set out to exclusively represent Michigan artists,” but they “realized [all the] talent just outside their door” and “decided to work with the best of the best in the region.” (Streit’s family “is filled with artists, singers, writers, and performers.” Her mother was a noted soprano, and her accountant father “put down his calculator and [took up] painting” at age 80.)

The namesake Twisted Fish was created by Illinois sculptor and filmmaker Daniel Johnson. It spent time at Chicago’s Navy Pier as part of a national sculptural exhibit before the Streits purchased it and had Johnson reconstruct it on site.

The Main Gallery is in the red farmhouse, where interior spaces allow for viewing pieces as one would see them in one’s own home. The adjacent Cottage Gallery, circa 1850s, and said to be one of the first farms in Elk Rapids, displays more art, with space for exhibits and workshops. Its full working kitchen makes it suitable for events. “We are cooking up some fun,” says Streit.

Twisted Fish is known for its large-scale canvases, and its “Take & Try” option allows collectors to bring a work to the home or office for a day or two to see how it works in the space. Consultations, delivery, and help with installation are available.

Meanwhile, the four-season sculpture garden offers beautiful plantings and over 60 sculptures in sizes small and large, made of steel, bronze, glass, concrete, ceramic, or found objects. Representations are figurative to abstract, serious to whimsical, and all are for sale.

Now, let’s meet some of those artists. (And note: There are dozens more whose work graces the walls, floors, and grounds of Twisted Fish.)

Charles Murphy: Renaissance Man

Murphy transitions easily from one genre and style to another. Oils, watercolors, and acrylics; realism and impressionism; local landscapes and illustrations; large abstract oils and postage stamp-size miniatures. Look for the precision of a Wyeth and gorgeous clouds in homage to Eric Sloan, “America’s greatest cloud artist.” Murphy’s comprehensive understanding makes him a particularly effective teacher, both here and worldwide. “Process is a big thing with me,” he says. (His Twisted Fish workshops are a must.)

Lindy Bishop: Art Life

Bishop is a “contemporary expressionist” responding to the “sensibility of a movement exploring…rural…subject matter, and [its] humanity.” She captures light and energy through rich color and broad, assertive brush strokes. Influences include Wayne Thiebaud and David Hockney for “their unusual color choices” and “very fresh styles,” and the Canadian Group of Seven for their depictions of nature. But her biggest influence was from teacher, Lars-Birger Sponberg, Swedish-born Chicagoan who developed his Midwestern regionalist style while a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. (Sponberg was a longtime exhibitor at Charlevoix’s highly respected Waterfront Art Fair.)

Michelle Sider: From Darkness to Light

Fine arts and clinical psychology come together in these stunning glass “paintings,” as an expression of the world—the dark and the light, the fragments “put back together in a beautiful way.” Sider’s work is meant to “push the limits between detailed realism and abstract designs,” using a variety of glass and techniques. There’s Italian smalti, for example, opaque molten glass hand cut by Italian artisans, and Japanese Kintsugi, or “join with gold,” the traditional repair of broken pottery with gold, thereby increasing its beauty. In a break from tradition, Sider begins each project with a fully realized painting of the subject. “[I’ve] never come across another mosaic artist who uses the method.”

Doug Melvin: One Man’s Junk is Another Man’s Treasure

Before joining Twisted Fish, Melvin influenced a generation of students in the art department of Petoskey’s North Central Michigan College. But it was his son who introduced the abstract painter to the possibilities in “found object” sculpture as they cleaned debris from their Boyne City farm. One of his latest is the horse Defiance: Spirit of Ukraine II, standing resolute, at eight feet tall, with palpable strength. His mare and offspring, on the other hand, gently evokes the bond of motherhood. Melvin’s imposing bull sculpture elicited a different reaction when it occupied Boyne City’s waterfront park: The anatomically correct creature was discovered wearing underpants, thanks to some local wag. (Melvin thought it “hilarious.”) Today it resides on a Traverse area farmstead, as nature intended, sans-culotte.

Kimberly Bazemore: Design + Nature

“[I] was never exposed to so much beauty…until I moved to northern Michigan,” Kim Bazemore says. That was 1988, when she left Atlanta for Glen Arbor’s Becky Thatcher Design. The move sparked her own career as a self-taught metalsmith. “I found some beach glass and made some jewelry, and the idea was born,” she says. “I love the colors, [and] the…glass/metal [contrast].” Other materials include old coins, beach stones, Leland Blue and Petoskey stones, driftwood, and felted wool from local alpaca and llama. Most of her work is in sterling silver, some in brass. Beyond jewelry, look for interesting ornaments and objet d’art. A welding studio is in the works, allowing a return to bigger pieces.

Anne Crouter: To the Moon, Alice! (Seriously.)

A prodigious child talent, Crouter drew subject matter from the family farm before branching out through world travels. A master of nontraditional watercolor technique—more pigment, less water—and acrylic, her reputation is vast, and now five of her exquisitely executed works will be included in the Lunar Codex, a moon-based archive of over 30,000 works of art from creators in 157 countries using NanoFiche technology. The archive will last for hundreds of thousands of years, allowing future moon travelers access to our culture using a magnifying glass. Heady company, indeed. Learn more at lunarcodex.com/story.

Dick Davis: The Peace & Love Business Model

Dick Davis began with a Marquette leather shop and gallery in the early 1970s, “but no one had any money,” says wife Marti. Prospects improved upon opening North Country Ways on Union St. in Traverse City, but serious careers took them to Chicago before retiring here full time. Davis’ unorthodox style—homemade tools, for example—came from being an apprentice to Traverse City blacksmith Dan Nickels and a session at the New England School of Metalwork. He creates distinctive furniture with trademark curving metal detail—inspired by working with the challenging sycamore—and both members of the Davis family produce their hugely popular line of “smalls,” functional and decorative items including leather bracelets, forged vases, knives, small sculptures, and yard art.

Art Year-Round

The gallery stays busy throughout the year. Check out “PAIRINGS,” a scaled-down show usually featuring a painter and a sculptor; also look for demonstrations, art workshops, meet-the-artist events, and collabs between artist and chef or writer. In the summer, enjoy the “Music Under the Pines” summer concert series (BYO lawn chairs and a picnic). Art Beat is the biannual gallery tour with Elk Rapids galleries. Twisted Fish also hosts Crooked Tree’s Paint Grand Traverse Plein Air Painters.

On- and off-site collaborations include Higher Art gallery in TC; Elk Rapids Art & Connection; and Mari Vineyards among others. The gallery also sponsors the Traverse City Philharmonic’s “Home for the Holidays” concert on Dec. 22, held at Interlochen’s Corson Auditorium.

Visit Twisted Fish Gallery at 10443 S. Bay Shore Dr., Elk Rapids. (231) 264-0123; twistedfishgallery.com

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