A variety of artistic styles will be on display at the Box Factory for the Art’s new exhibit from September 15 to October 29, 2023. The public can meet the artists at the Opening Reception on Friday, September 15, 5:30 to 7 p.m. Light snacks and
beer and wine will be available.
The Series 5 exhibition is this year’s fifth building-wide show displaying artwork on all three floors of the historic building. Featured artists are Carol L. Myers, Mark Wagner, Hank Mattson, and Susan Plee. See descriptions below. A photo is attached for each artist
Visits to the Box Factory galleries are free and open to the public every Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with extended hours until 7 p.m. on Thursday. (Winter hours beginning Oct. 1 will be Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 4 p.m., open until 6 p.m. on Thursday.) The Box Factory for the Arts is located at 1101 Broad St. in St. Joseph.
SERIES 5 EXHIBITS
Printmaking/Mixed Media by Carol L. Myers 
Williams Gallery (main level)
Carole L. Myers’ drawings encompass “the healing nature of art,” inspired by drawings she made as she sat with her daughter in the ICU, as well as the many hours she spent traveling between her home in Michigan and hospitals in Chicago. She uses pencil, printmaking with ink and wax, and watercolor, oil pastel, and plaster.
“Meditative pencil drawings examine the natural objects that fascinate me: shells, bones, fossils, bare trees and roots—the architecture of nature,” Myers says. “I plumb the depths of nature for visual exploration of spirit and healing, creating artistic space for contemplation and meditation: a sacred resting place for the senses.”
Myers has a public studio in the Box Factory and a home studio in Watervliet. She has a BFA from the University of Michigan and has studied with many nationally known artists. She is an active member of the Berrien Artist Guild, the Women’s Caucus for the Arts, and numerous other art organizations. Myers’ work has been shown in national and regional juried shows, galleries and museum collections, and published in Strawberry Moon Magazine and Still Point Arts Quarterly, most recently in the spring 2023 issue.
“A Warm Flannel Birdhouse in a Heavily Starched World” 
Woodworking/3D by Mark Wagner
Whitlow Gallery (main level)
With a reverence for wood and the outdoors, Mark Wagner creates each of his distinctive birdhouses and burl wood vessels at his home in Niles Michigan.
“The wood in these works were chosen for the rarity they have realized over time, transformed by natural processes to develop authentic, aged patinas—some delicate, some robust, all beautiful,” Wagner says. “The results are delightfully unexpected, unpretentiously comfortable, timelessly styled works of art with an easy fit for one’s outdoor or indoor environment.”
1Wagner’s recent awards include the Midwest Museum of American Art Juried Regional Exhibition, the Michiana Annual Arts Competition, and the Heartland Artist Gallery Juried Regional Art Exhibit. His hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind creations are sold in select galleries and fine art shows throughout the United States.
“Wild Ferment” 
Painting/Printmaking by Hank Mattson
Riverwalk Gallery (1st floor, ground level)
A prolific artist, Hank Mattson’s body of work spans a variety of styles and subjects, always painted in bold, expressive color. He describes the objects portrayed in his work as “a paraphernalia of the artist’s life”: the traditional (art books and anatomical figures); the digital (camera and computer); and the practical (meat tenderizer and tomato corer, upon which his source of income relies).
The intersection of these elements creates a self-portrait through still life, Mattson says. “The compositions have been carefully curated to give the viewer room for contemplation. The brushwork is direct and visible, a dance of the surreal and expressive.”
Mattson spent most of his life in the American Southwest before moving to Kalamazoo, MI. He earned a BFA in painting from Northern Arizona University and studied abroad at the Siena School for Liberal Arts. He teaches at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and has taught print-making classes at the Box Factory.
“Spirit of the Sun”
Cyanotypes by Susan Plee
Sky Level Gallery (3rd floor)
Susan Plee’s cyanotypes represent one of the earliest forms of photographic printing. The process, developed by noted astronomer and scientist Sir John Herschel in 1842, uses an iron salt solution and the power of the sun to create ferric ferrocyanide (also known as “Prussian blue”), a pigment found in many high-end artist paints. Plee discovered the process in a workshop at the Krasl Art Center and continues to explore the age-old imaging method with a variety of objects on treated watercolor paper. The result is a series of brilliant blue/green cyanotypes on exhibit. “It’s a reminder of how we all leave a print of our lives, personalized and one of a kind,” Plee says.
A graduate of St. Joseph High School, Plee earned an AA degree in Fashion Design and Early Childhood Education while living in California. She has been a Berrien Artist Guild member since 1997 and a Krasl Art Center docent since 2018. Plee has a working studio at the Box Factory.
For more on this and other Box Factory events, visit online at boxfactoryforthearts.org or https://facebook.com/boxfactoryarts.
For questions, email Jane Rush, gallery chair, at gallery@boxfactoryforthearts.org. Or call the Box Factory at (269) 983-3688 and leave a message.
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