Higher Art Gallery is honored to represent many Artists at varying levels in their careers. While we are based in Traverse City, Michigan, we believe Art is a Universal language which needs no words, so the artists we represent are not only based from the state of Michigan, but throughout the U.S. and beyond.
Stop by next time you are visiting the area or browse our artists from anywhere by clicking on their names.
OUR ARTISTS
click images to view Artist's work
Mara Manning
Mara Manning is a painter working in Oil & Cold Wax. She lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and draws much of her inspiration from her travels and the medium of Oil and Cold wax itself. Texture, Mark making and layers of color help take the viewer to some of the very places she has been.
Fran De Anda
Artist, Fran De Anda is a painter based in Mexico City. Mexico. His recognizable work is both classical and contemporary. Known for his use of gold leaf and iconography and images rooted in alchemy, he includes a charming cast of characters such as toads, racoons and other magical beings.
Cynthia Marks
Cynthia Marks is a clay artist from Indiana, but currently based in Northern Michigan. Her handmade vessels are well recognized for their creative surface texture, bold colors and sense of playfulness. Cynthia takes much of her inspiration from painters such as Hilma Af Klint, and Cy Twombley. Clay is her canvas.
Bruce Peeso
Bruce Peeso is known for his unique take on landscape paintings. Over decades, he has perfected a skinny, horizontal look at fields, farms and other landscapes. Along his horizon lines, the viewer finds tiny structures dotting the scene. Bruce paints in acrylic and is based in Massachusetts.
Deanna Hergt-Willmott
Deanna Hergt- Willmott is a clay artist based in Petoskey, Michigan. Her vessels, and other functional ceramics celebrate the wonders of our Great Lakes, and the beauty found in the Michigan forests. Her "Lake Bottom" series of pots and Birch tree platters are popular with collectors hoping to bring some of the outside into their homes.
Justin Shull
Justin Shull is a painter based in Traverse City, Michigan who works primarily in Gouache & Acrylic. His paintings feature both well-known places which are known for their beauty, but also ordinary places in which he elevates them through his artwork. Justin is known for his constructed, multi panel paintings and bold use of color.
Keenan
Keenan is an Artist whose sculptures were born out of his passion for skateboarding. Broken skateboard decks led him to what is now a world of making art. His assembled broken skateboard sculptures resemble what you might see being done with stained glass. His artwork is unique, contemporary and a snapshot into his life.
Keenan lives in Florida.
Jean Sbarra Jones
Jean Sbarra Jones is a landscape painter working in acrylics. Up-close, observations, her brushstrokes are very deliberate and unique. Standing back, each scene makes you feel as if you are right there. The greens are so lush that you can smell the forest. River bottoms shine through the reflection of the canopy above. Jean is based in Massachusetts.
Helen Hierta
Helen Hierta's clay meditation totems are rooted in creating a sense of harmonious energy found in the repetition of her stacked sculptures and the little worlds of texture found on each individual component.
Her work is safe for outdoor display, or it can be displayed indoors.
Helen Hierta lives in Michigan along the shores of Lake Huron.

Ronna Alexander
Based in Saugatuck, Michigan, Ronna Alexander is known for combining Encaustic paintings with scraps of fabric and other objects.
Lee Gordon
Lee Gordon is a New England-based glass blower. Lee’s work draws inspiration from the natural environments of his coastal hometown. Working with hot molten glass, he layers earth-toned colors, patterns, and textures using an abstract painterly technique that brings life to the landscapes that inspire him.

Angela Larson
Angela Larson is a Michigan based clay artist whose work often incorporates reclaimed scrap metal or steel. Her work is sculptural and can include raku totems and tabletop sculpture.
Joanne Kirkland
Joanne Kirkland is a studio potter based in Wisconsin. She specializes in Raku and Wax resist techniques. Her environment is her inspiration for form and surface imagery…. people, prairie, lake and woodland, stories we tell each other. Whether it is metaphoric sculptural vessels, or functional objects decorated with geometric representations of natural phenomena, she enjoys residing in a continuum of thousands of years of tradition.
Silverfish Designs
Julie Billups of Silver Fish Designs is a West Michigan artist that derives inspiration from the widely divergent sources of industrial decay and color such as crumbling concrete, peeling paint and rusting metals. She juxtaposes them with the bright colors of an abstract painting or the vivid aquas of Northern Michigan lakes.
Her jewelry making process is a bit unordinary using sintered steel and vitreous enamels contrasted with gemstones set in silver and gold.
Ann Willey
Ann Willey's paintings portray a world where myths, fairytales, dreams and everyday life overlap and intermingle. The scenes created in the work hint at a narrative, but they act more like a poem or haiku, providing a quick glimpse into a world below the surface. Ann works mainly in watercolor, Gouache and Acrylic.
Hartini Gibson
Hartini Gibson is a mixed media artist based in New Jersey. Her artwork is created from fragments of her own paintings which are combined digitally with edited photos and drawings to create an original abstract landscape. The Artwork is then hand embellished using archival inks and acrylic.
John Leben
Artist John Leben is an environmentalist whose artwork reflects his love of the planet and all which call it home. John is a digital artist and uses painting software. Humor plays a big part in his imagery, but it also serves to help temper the subject matter of his artwork and make it more palatable to the viewer.
Dana Ingham
The highly detailed and laser-like precision cut constructed paper sculpture of Dana Ingham is an attempt to fuse impressions and memories of things that have struck him and fix them into a tangible form. At one time or another, everyone is struck by something they see - an arrangement, a reflection, a shadow, a detail, a texture - that stops us, if only for a minute, just to look.
Dana lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Guy Veryzer
Clay Artist, Guy Veryzer is based in New York and an archeologist of the imagination. Through his work, he uncovers objects in the hidden sites and tombs buried in his unconscious. When one look's at the painted decoration and sculpted figures adorning the objects from this imaginary civilization, they seem to unlock the mystery of a narrative tale. The animals are joyful and innocent. Smiles on the faces of the beings are pure, but perhaps, a little too knowing.
Jil Johnson
Jil Johnson is a Traverse City based Artist who works with a variety of materials which can include wood carving, metals, found objects and paintings. She works in 2-D as well as creates sculpture. Her work embodies a myriad of expressions including humor (both dark and lighthearted), absurdity, whimsy and warmth. Jil's artwork is distinct, highly detailed with many small components making the whole of it.
Laurie Shaman
Laurie Shaman is a Chicago based clay artist. Laurie makes tabletop and wall pieces in porcelain or stoneware using slab-built techniques, with an eye on developing shapes and contours which provide the surface for her hand drawn imagery. These forms thus become a canvas for depicting scenes that combine my interests in travel, art history and the natural world.
​
Stan Peterson
Stan Peterson is a narrative sculptor working in wood. All of his wood working is accomplished by using a variety of hand tools. Stan is always on the lookout for “moments of significance” which tell a story. Stan is based in Oregon.