Ivey Abitzs Have Closed Market Street Art Gallery

Joshua and Cynthia Ivey Abitz have closed their Mackinac Island business on Market Street, The Ivey Abitz Gallery of Fine Art.

The gallery, which opened in 2002, featured black and white photographs and oil paintings of the Mackinac Island landscape. Their photographs are silver gelatin prints, in which a their contrasting features are controlled by hand, which Mr. Ivey Abitz calls a nostalgic process and the antithesis to digital photography.

“We opened the gallery to deepen our experience and presence as artists,” said Mrs. Ivey Abitz, “and now we see this closing as a way to grow in new and exciting ways.”

Mrs. Ivey Abitz said they will look for other locations on the Island but, for now, they plan to focus on commission work and building a new home on the Island. The couple creates photographic wedding and family studies around the world. Scenes include Chicago, Puerto Vallarta, and a castle in the Allegheny Mountains.

Mrs. Ivey Abitz is a part-time art teacher at Mackinac Island Public School. Her relatives are world-renowned American painters Mary Cassatt and Robert Henri.