Venturing into galleries and museums is always a thrill when you can discover artists side-by-side who are both well known and virtually unknown…but the unique nature of The Box Factory for the Arts traditional Michiana Annual Arts Competition — simply referred to as The MAAC — affords us all the opportunity to see the handiwork of people from across the street, down the block or a couple of small towns away each year in an awesome collection.
Beginning next Friday, May 14th and continuing through Sunday, July 11th, the artwork of 90 regional artists will be on exhibit in the Box Factory for the Arts galleries at 1101 Broad Street in St. Joseph, after they were accepted from the entries received over the winter. The galleries are open Fridays-through-Sundays from noon to 4 pm, and are free to the public.
Mary Whalen, Photography and Digital Media Department Chair at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, judged the work and selected a total of 162 pieces of artwork to be on exhibit. She also selected the Best of Show, six category awards and honorable mention awards. The sculpture award was selected by Tami Miller of the Krasl Art Center.
The Best of Show award of $1,000 is sponsored by the Southwest Michigan Tourist Council. It goes to Mary Amador of Goshen, Indiana for “Her Hiding Place.” The piece (shown here) is acrylic and colored pencil on a wooden panel with gold leaf and small crystals.
Providing the $200 category awards are: An Anonymous Friend of the Arts… B.E.R. Refrigeration, Heating, Cooling and Plumbing…Cafe Tosi…Foster Swift Collins and Smith Attorneys…John DeVries Insurance Agency…Krasl Art Center…and MailMax.
The category winners are:
- Doug LaFerle, St. Joseph, MI – Sculpture – “Icarus”
- Zech Ray, Berrien Springs, MI – Watercolor – “Summer Lillies”
- Kei Constantinov, Michigan City, IN – Oil and Acrylic – “Strumpets on the Rialto”
- Becky Rotter, Sodus, MI – Ceramics – “Trio in Black and White”
- Pamela DeMarris, Benton Harbor, MI – Photography – “Woman with Apples”
- Laurel Kuehl, Portage, MI – Pastel and Drawing – “Veiled Light”
- Judy Hallisy, Saugatuck, MI – Miscellanea – “Peyote”
Honorable mention awards also go to Pam Nivala, Sculpture…Pallavi Manjrekar, Watercolor…Zech Ray, Oil and Acrylic…Kari Black, Ceramics…Jay Wise, Photography…Laurel Kuehl, Pastel and Drawing…and Denise Tackett, Miscellanea.
The awards will be presented to the artists at a tent reception and open house at the Box Factory on June 19th. That event from 5:30 to 8 pm is free and open to the public. Guest moderator (yours truly) Pat Moody of Moody on the Market will present the awards at 7 pm.
For more on this and other Box Factory events, you can visit the Box online at this link: http://www.boxfactoryforthearts.org or on the Box Factory’s Facebook page.
