It took four full years of planning and fundraising, so when Crooked Tree Arts Center secured the rights to display the traveling exhibit titled “Ansel Adams: Masterworks,” it decided that merely hanging the iconic photographs in its Petoskey gallery would not be enough. Instead, the organization decided to plan a summer’s worth of related events in both Petoskey and Traverse City.

As writer Patrick Sullivan details in this week's Northern Express - sister publication of The Ticker - the 48 high-quality prints that Adams himself hand-selected to represent his work will be accompanied by lectures, a visit by a legendary documentary filmmaker, photography workshops and a juried photography show of national parks photography. The exhibition itself will run in Petoskey June 1–Sept. 28. CTAC Executive Director Liz Ahrens spoke with Sullivan about all that went into booking the show and the excitement that continues to build as its opening nears.

"There’s a whole back story to this traveling exhibit," says Ahrens. "When Ansel Adams was still alive – he died in 1984 – he put together a group [of photographs] specifically that he curated. He selected these photos to travel to smaller museums. He was there when they were all printed. He signed them...Ansel Adams photographs are very limited. He was very aware that he wanted to limit the number of photos he created."

Hosting the rare exhibit - along with ancillary programs and events - will cost CTAC an estimated $130,000. "The challenge was raising the money," Ahrens says. "We knew this would be a blockbuster show for us, but it was raising the money and providing the complementary programming that’s going to create the ongoing groundswell of, 'Oh my gosh, I’d better go see this exhibit.'" She adds: "We’re at $90,000, so we’re almost there. It’s an expensive proposition. I won’t say it’s once in a lifetime, but we won’t do something like this again for years."

Read more of Sullivan's interview with Ahrens and details about the Ansel Adams exhibit coming soon to northern Michigan in this week's Northern Express story, "How Northern Michigan Landed Ansel Adams." The Northern Express is available online, or pick up a free copy at one of more than 600 distribution spots across 14 counties.