Jeff Arcel, 68

Jeff Arcel, 68, passed away on Thursday, February 8, after one last night filled with music and friends. Jeff was born in Detroit in 1954 to Joan Mary Ingraham and Edward Franklin Thomas. Jeff’s first job was running a paper route, and he used his weekly earnings from that job to purchase a comic book and a soda. As he got older, Jeff developed a passion for golf and spent his summers working as a caddy. During his teenage years, he spent time working in his grandfather’s auto parts store. His real passions, however, were art and music.

From a young age, Jeff was innately creative. He dreamt of being an animator, loved comic books, and followed artists like Winsor McCay, Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Shel Silverstein, and Arthur Rackham. He channeled his artistic talents in various ways - from designing sets for his high school’s theater productions to creating cartoons that would go on to be published in magazines and newspapers nationwide. Inspired by the Beatles, Jeff picked up a guitar at the age of 12 and taught himself to play. Thus began a musical legacy that would carry him throughout his entire life.

At the age of 16, Jeff and some friends took a trip to Montana to go skiing in Glacier National Park. Later, he would tell his family that he’d had three great epiphanies in his life, moments when he said he’d “heard God speak to him”: one was that he knew Montana was home as soon as he saw the Alpenglow-drenched mountains rising up out of the plains on his first trip West. The other was that he was destined to marry Jean, whom he met at a birthday party in 1973. The third and final epiphany was that the children he and Jean would later have together were his “reason for being.” Together, he and Jean returned to Montana in 1975 and started their lives. Before buying a piece of property and building a home, Jeff started a business called Bushhogs that bid tree thinning and planting jobs with the Forest Service, ran Root Foods - a food co-op in Coram, started a band called “The Wonders of the Invisible World,” and spent some time living in a school bus he and Jean retrofitted themselves.

In Montana, Jeff’s love of music melded with his love for community, and he routinely played gigs in and around Whitefish. His skill wasn’t limited to the guitar, though: he also played the piano, the flute, and - at least once - a hair comb and a piece of paper. Jeff saw music and art as a form of creation and a connection with the unique sense of divinity that animated and energized his life. In a 2015 interview with a local newspaper, he said, “Because we can create things, we should create things.” And create he did. He created the Whitefish Winter Carnival poster from 2005-2019 and made dozens of pieces of original artwork that have hung in galleries, bars, and restaurants around Whitefish.

In addition to art and music, Jeff started a business - Applied Information Services (AIS) - that served as a computer consulting firm at the dawn of the Internet. He also taught himself to build and, later, design and install renewable energy systems, a service he provided with his companies Mother’s Power and Aeon Renewable Energy. He put solar panels on the Polebridge Mercantile and many other local businesses, which live on as a reminder of Jeff’s industriousness and forward-thinking.

Jeff possessed a wild sense of joy and wonder and was deeply dedicated to the idea that “life is only as good as you make it.” Those who knew and loved Jeff call him a “visionary” and a “renaissance man” and remember his laugh, infectious energy and excitement, intelligence, and deep love for his family, friends, and community. Jeff, beloved father, husband, and, now, “wonder of the invisible world,” is survived by his wife of 43 years, Jean, his daughter Ashley, 33 (her husband Samuel, and their two kids, Augustus and Arlo), his son Julian, 30 (and his partner Lizzy), his sister Kim, brother Kevin, and adoptive father Joe Arcel.

A celebration of Jeff’s life will be held in the coming weeks — details to follow.