Free Gallery Exhibits at the Box Factory for the Arts

Description

The Box Factory for the Art’s Series 1 exhibit has something for everyone, including
miniature works of art to take home. 

The multifaceted exhibition fills four galleries on all three floors of the historic Box Factory, located at
1101 Broad St. in St. Joseph, MI. The artwork can be viewed Jan. 17 to Feb. 23, 2025. Winter hours are
Friday-Sunday, 12-4 p.m., and Thursday 12-6 p.m. Following are featured artists.

Williams Gallery (2 nd floor, street level)
“The Quickest Way to Zen” by the Fun Squad
This exhibit puts an emphasis on fun! The Fun Squad is an artist collective
based in Benton Harbor, MI. Fourteen professional artists will present a
variety of works including paintings, drawings, mixed media, and found-
art sculptures. Viewers are encouraged to interact with the art. “In the Fun
Squad shows we invite viewers to have fun in the exhibition space,” says
Clement Teo of Coloma, MI. “Our mission is to energize, revitalize and
mesmerize.” The show also includes Fun Squad artists Nathan Margoni,
Nathan Anderson, Ellen Nelson, Jennifer Zona, Jessica Hightower, Ben
Good, Lea Bult, Laurie Rousseau, Ramiro Rodriguez, Mark Rospenda, Carr
Pierce, Peyton Haggertybrown, and Dean Campillo.

Whitlow Gallery (2nd floor, street level)

“Bunny Trails” is a collection of fantastical vignettes that one can
imagine as a portal into a favorite picture book featuring a cast
of bunnies and their woodland friends. “When you step
through, you are transported into a new world with all the same
parts, just put together differently,” says Jennifer Hauser of
Downers Grove, IL. Her exhibit features 30 meticulously
executed drawings in ink and colored pencil on primed
masonite. The intricate, boldly colored drawings are reminiscent
of the stained-glass windows she makes. Hauser, a Chicago-
based architect by trade, prefers to draw with technical pens,
relics of a past era in hand drafting architectural drawings, for
their line quality and methodical technique.

T.J. Schwartz, of St. Joseph, calls upon the legend of Sleeping
Bear to depict a language of trauma and connection using
the traditional techniques of quilting, ceramics, and weaving.
“Motherhood, folklore, and the land are intertwined in this
work just as the materials conveying their complexity are
layered together,” Schwartz says. She spent summers at
Interlochen Arts Camp and has a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She now spends most
of her time in her studio, teaching art, and volunteering in the community.

Riverwalk Gallery (1st floor, ground level)
Fiber artist Laurel Izard

Laurel Izard’s exhibition of hanging quilts she made from hand-
embroidered, vintage baby blankets has a mission: to start a conversation
about today’s important environmental and social justice issues – namely
gun violence, school shootings, species extinction, and embedded gender
roles. The award-winning artist, makes art full time in Michigan City, IN,
with her artist husband Edwin Shelton. After college – in which she received
degrees in art and anthropology and a master’s in ceramics – Izard and
Shelton started a ceramics business, Izwin, producing and selling whimsical
tabletop wares throughout the country. She currently teaches textile-art
workshops focusing on embroidery and quilts.

Abstract oil paintings by Keith Pastrick
Keith Pastrick’s creative process begins with observing the natural world around him: color, light, sound,
and space. “I approach my canvas as an opportunity to encompass the visual and emotional aspects of
my daily life,” says Pastrick, a full time artist living in New Buffalo, MI. A graduate of the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago. Pastrick has been painting for over 35 years, primarily with oil. His work has
been exhibited throughout Chicago and is in private collections around the world.

Skyview Gallery (3rd floor)

Jacob Baerwald’s body of work was shaped by an interest in heavily processing the digital photographs
he was taking, and a fascination with how optics can shape and transform one’s perception of an
otherwise familiar environment – in this case a wooded area near his parents’ home. “As a lover of
impressionistic and abstract painting, this primarily out-of-focus photographic approach was a rather
natural step to take,” Baerwald says. “I was able to create an alternative reality out of otherwise
common Michigan woodland.” Baerwald is a photographer, sound artist, abstract illustrator and
occasional painter living in the rural, orchard-laden regions near Coloma, MI.