The original story of Planes, Trains & Automobiles involved making it home for Thanksgiving, but on this Easter Sunday, there’s great excitement over an upcoming showcase of the same name coming next month to The Box Factor for the Arts, and it promises some exciting imagery for all of us to enjoy.
Essentially, transportation is taking over the Box Factory for the month of May. You will have the opportunity to view artwork and history inspired by transportation and just getting around. In the Williams Gallery, Laura Kraklau will display her new series, car pARTs – Reflections on Automotive Design. Her work highlights up-close studies of the details of vintage vehicles.
The Whitlow Gallery will feature the artwork of Mark Kelly. His series South Shore is the culmination of years of visits to Chicago via train. He focuses on the transition of the landscape throughout the years as seen from the railway.
Meanwhile, The Box Factory’s River Walk Gallery will display aerial and historical photographs from the Southwest Michigan Regional Airport. The show Planes, Trains & Automobiles will be in the galleries at the Box Factory for the Arts from Friday, May 5, 2017 to Saturday, June 3, 2017. Everyone is invited to join the Opening Reception on Friday, May 5, 2017 from 5:30pm – 7:30pm.
For Laura Kraklau, it was the gift of a vintage Eastman Kodak Brownie camera that she received from her grandmother many years ago that sparked an interest in exploring the world through photography. Over time, the interest has grown into a passion for sharing stories of the world around us through the camera lens.
Laura’s photographs have been featured in exhibition at the National Lighthouse Museum in Staten Island, New York, and throughout southwestern Michigan at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art, The Inn at Harbor Shores, Box Factory for the Arts, and Krasl Art Center. In 2014, Laura published View 366: A Year-long Visual Story of the St. Joseph Lighthouses. It is a 229-page coffee table book documenting a year-in- the-life of southwestern Michigan’s most beloved pair of beacons through 366 consecutive daily photos captured from a wide variety of vantage points and different times of day.
In her day job, Laura is a marketing and communications professional who has worked in the financial services, higher education, and performing arts industries. She now owns View 366 LLC through which she provides marketing, communications, and writing services to a variety of clients who make this world a better and more beautiful place.
Laura’s exhibition, car pARTs – Reflections on Automotive Design is a photographic look at elements of vintage vehicle artistry as seen by her. Highlighted in the collection are up-close studies of small details – the curves, the chrome, the lines, the adornments – that have had a big impact on the signature style of many iconic brands including Packard, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ford, Studebaker, and many others. There are even a few glimpses of decades-old vehicles that have become fixtures in recognizable southwest Michigan settings.
Adding to this artistic reflection on a past era of styling are the current day reflections captured in many of the photographs. All images were taken outdoors. The high shine of the chrome and painted surfaces picks up passing people, nearby buildings, sky and trees, and the unpredictable play of light and shadows to create a mosaic of colors and stories.
Mark Kelly has been a commercial and advertising photographer since graduating in 1979 from the University of Notre Dame with an MFA in Photography. Mark has managed to keep one foot in the commercial world and the other in photographic education at the community college level. He’s worked as a staff photographer in a commercial studio, a corporate photographer for a diversified manufacturer of RVs, boats, truck fleets, and custom kitchens, and as a freelance photographer running his own business. Three years as a full time instructor in a Commercial Photo program at the Associate degree level led to six years as a Division Chair at Ivy Tech, overseeing a Visual Communications program that included Photography, Graphic Design, Video Production, and Multimedia Design. When photography went digital, Mark went with it, leading to a second career in academic technology. Currently, Mark is the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at Lake Michigan College, where he helps faculty use technology in the classroom and manages Canvas, the learning management system used by the college.
His photographs “evoke a sense of place and celebrate the coastal lifestyle”. Mark comments: “Through the use of digital manipulation, I hope to convey my personal visual interpretation of a subject rather than to simply create a photojournalistic record of it.”
Mark Kelly’s “South Shore” is the culmination of years of visits to Chicago, first as a kid growing up in central Illinois whose family visited the city on a monthly basis via a 6 hour trip on Amtrak in the age of Parlor and dining cars, and later as a graduate student and young professional on the South Shore railroad going into the city for various conferences, job interviews, and events. He says, “I was always fascinated by the transition of the landscape from the rural to the urban and back again, and in later years, by the toll taken on the landscape of the south shore of Lake Michigan by the decades of economic boom and bust cycles it has endured. What remains is a quiet desolation and an economic barometer of sorts that is reflected in the snapshots of backyards and hopeful enterprises which rush past as we travel to and from the City.”
The companion exhibit, “iPhoneography”, chronicles Mark’s exploration of the creative possibilities of smartphone photography and the vast array of available post production software that aids in producing an artist’s singular vision. Very much in the 1970’s tradition of the Polaroid SX70 instant print camera, whose images could be easily manipulated during the first few minutes of development with dental tools and other items to achieve various effects, smartphone images and the image editing apps which have been created for them can give us images that are spontaneous, insightful, telling, and most of all… fun. Says Kelly,”I’m often asked what the ‘best’ camera is, and my answer has come to be that the ‘best’ camera is the one you have with you when you want to take a picture, and know how to use. For most of us, this means the ubiquitous smartphone.
Southwest Michigan Regional Airport is proud to be the centrally located airport of Michigan’s Great Southwest. Providing easy access to the business centers and direct access to the area’s tourist attractions, the airport extends an invitation to be treated with our red carpet service when you arrive or depart. You are their number one customer whether you fly in your business aircraft, charter aircraft or general aviation aircraft. When you arrive at SWMRA, you are conveniently located near many top rated golf courses, The Southwest Michigan Wine Trail, area marinas, beaches, and other adventures that Michigan’s Great Southwest offers.
The Riverwalk Gallery will showcase aerial photographs, historical photos, and other items from the airport’s collection.
The Box Factory for the Arts is located at 1101 Broad Street in St. Joseph.
For more information, contact the Box Factory for the Arts at 269.983.3688 or visit https://boxfactoryforthearts.org/
The photo accompanying this article on Moody on the Market was provided by Laura Kraklau from her exhibition.
