Leland Gal owner Maggie Mielczarek continues to bring a colorful and artistic attitude to her shop at 104 N. Main Street in Leland.
“There are peaks and valleys in any entrepreneurial journey, but as a creative person, we put our head down, focus on what we do well, and try to make a creative store that makes people feel good,” Mielczarek said.
Leland Gal is in its 13th season after starting in a Fishtown shanty in 2012.
They opened up on a whim, as Leland Gal was initially a side business.
After being a teacher for nearly a decade, she finally moved back home to start a family and a new entrepreneurial opportunity.
Leland Gal was in Fishtown for seven years, and some close friends let them set up on the corner of River and Main Streets in 2020. That eventually led to their final location on Main Street.
Mielczarek grew up as a summer Leelanau kid before her family moved to the area fulltime when she was 14. She taught in Evanston, Illinois, for nine years and in Grand Rapids for three years before moving north.
She has two kids, Tommy and Eddie, 9 and 11-years-old, and they both go to Leland Public School, along with her husband Greg, who owns the Harbor House across the street in Leland.
The local artist is excited to announce a new collection that will be displayed later this year.
“It’s been working out, and we have a fascinating new collection that we will launch this year. It is all inspired by equestrian,” Mielczarak said.
The inspiration came from attending a Williamsburg horse show roughly a year ago. Since then, she has been creating a new equestrian collection, which will be a significant and new step for Leland Gal.
“We got to go to the horse show and became very inspired. So there are sort of two things aligned at the same time ... The idea was going outside of our comfort zone and being inspired by something fresh, and it’s not hard to be inspired when you go there,” she said. “We became taken by the animals and all the training and hard work everybody puts in.”
Mielczarak has also broadened her horizons during this project by using an iPad for the first time to create the collection. The body of work was mainly created digitally and has become a new obsession for her.
She is also excited to announce that Leland Gal will have an exclusive collection on Mackinaw Island, which will be displayed at “Little Luxuries” this summer, and more details will come later.
“We may have a couple of other collaborative projects up our sleeves that aren’t official yet, so I can’t say it, but we always do; we’ve enjoyed over the past couple of years, connecting with other businesses near and far to create new collections,” she said.
Mielczarek has always had the entrepreneurial bug.
“I think it’s good to evaluate your life at different points and decide if something’s still bringing you joy or not. I didn’t feel I was giving 110% to teaching, and I had learned this new skill through my teaching of graphic design and that is how Leland Gal was started,” Mielczarek said. “It has opened up a whole new world for us and was a giant risk... I kept my job until August the same year when Leland Gal opened in Fishtown.”
The significant risk was taken with support from her husband, mother, and other family members in Leland, who encouraged her to pursue the dream.
“It allows us to live a pretty unusual life,” Mielczarek said.
She remembers a lot of people saying that she wouldn’t survive as an artist or that it’s not a smart way to go, and Mielczarek couldn’t disagree more.
As a mother, she couldn’t be happier raising her children in Leelanau.
“Leelanau County does perpetuate that because it’s been so refreshing for us as parents in the community to see it’s a very equitable community in terms of moms and dads being partners and both having the ability to have flexible schedules to be a big part of their kids’ lives and the community,” Mielczarek said.
As for Mielczarek, what makes her feel most alive is being with loved ones and by the water.
“It’s just a complete recharge. I’d say that’s where I charge my batteries because it doesn’t happen as often in the summertime as I would like right now, but when I can, I feel like being in the breeze and by the water laying on the beach,” she said.
