I always love and experience Michiana when I get to come to places that have never been before.

And today I am at the box factory with board member Deborah Baker.

Deborah, this is beautiful.

I mentioned before we start recording.

It reminds me a little bit of the old bag factory in Goshen and.

But tell me about this building.

I know that it's been around since 1910, as it says, up on the sign, but where exactly are we?

Well, it started out as a box factory, the Williams box factory, and it had been an abandoned building for some time when in 1995, the Berry Artists Guild took a big leap of faith and purchased it as an empty shell of a building, and over the years put in a lot of hard work to make it what it is today, which is a 55,000 square foot multidisciplinary space for the arts.

It's wonderful.

There's something about these buildings.

I don't know what it is.

Maybe it's my old soul or something, but there's something about these buildings, the how they're constructed, the ceilings.

They're just so warm to me.

There's just something about them that's just so inviting compared to newer builds.

Well, it works perfectly for our purposes.

We exhibit art, we have live performances, we hold classes and workshops, and it's the wonderful, multi-faceted space that artists can really make their homes.

They have.

We have 69, studios for artists, up in the three floors that we have.

So it's a wonderful home for the arts.

And of course, artists, it can be such a lonely endeavor.

So having a space like this, that doesn't cost them a fortune to be here.

Also, having the collaboration of energy and just being part of a community makes such a big difference.

Well, that's exactly right.

That's our mission to support emerging and established artists.

And we take that mission seriously in terms of making sure that artists can have affordable space, that they have a place to show their work, and that they have a place to gather.

And we see it as a real sort of creative incubator and a community hub where people can come for low cost access to the arts and Saturday, June 14th, it is a day for people to gather.

So tell me a little bit about what's going to be happening in this room.

Well, throughout the year, we're using this opportunity to celebrate that this is our 30th anniversary, and we are going to have a wonderful benefit here on Saturday night with Brian Lubeck, who was is a wonderful, musician who got his start here on this stage, 30 years ago.

So he's coming back to celebrate with us along with Andrew Fisher, a wonderful local musician will have a silent auction, a live auction, wonderful food, wonderful drink.

We have a, specialty drink called the Painters Mule.

So our painters mule painters mule sounds good.

But it'll be a fun night.

And we look forward to having as many people come and join us as I can.

And so, what are the details for the concert this Saturday?

For the enterprise from 5 to 9.

The doors open at five.

The auction is from 5 to 7, and the concert starts right after that.

We hope everyone can get here in time to enjoy all of it.

I go to a lot of like, charity events and I love the auctions.

I don't know why it says.

And I love when they say you won the item like you didn't pay for it, right?

Like you won it.

But yeah, I love I love it.

And in this case, all the items are donated by our resident artists and entrepreneurs.

So there's some wonderful art pieces, as well as some exciting things that will be in the live auction, including, surfing lessons and, a chance for you to have Brian Lubeck come to your home for a private concert.

So lots of fun things to to look forward to.

Well, I know that's happening this Saturday, but there's lots for people to experience.

Whether they can make it on June 14th or not.

So we're going to chat with David about some of the exhibitions that are going on here as well.

So thank you so much and I hope you have a great night.

Thank you very much.

Enjoy those painters mules.

So we just spoke with Deborah Baker and now we're speaking with David Baker.

But no relation, no relation, although you are also serving on the board here of the box factory.

Actually I'm, co-chair of the exhibitions department.

Oh, the exhibition.

So tell me a little bit about the exhibitions that are actually going on here right now.

So, well, just a brief overview.

The box is, six exhibition series per year.

Each of those runs, 6 or 7 weeks.

And we are currently in our series number three, which is a regional juried show.

The acronym is the MAAC which has been modified to be MAAC in the box.

It's the, M A A C the the Michiana annual art competition.

Okay.

And it's a juried show.

Our guest year was, Jessica Boas, who was a sculptor.

And, top finalist in the Art prize and, and Grand Rapids.

And she selected from the 275 pieces that were entered, 158 pieces for our show.

And so the show was, offer four levels and four galleries and on three levels.

And it's it's really a special one.

This is really quite nice.

And this is one of the pieces here behind me.

Can you tell me a little bit about this escape velocity?

This is a beast, a Doug Laferle from Grand Rapids.

By trade.

He's an architect, but he also paints and does these wonderful kinetic sculptures.

And this is based on, a NASA launch and, the recording out of this antique 1968, sound machine is actually the, footage taken in the control panel during the NASA launch.

And here we have the planets and, all this cosmic things and and wonderful motion and, and there's 130 artists here in total that are representing.

Correct.

So there's a lot of variety, a lot of like this is definitely unusual and special, certainly, but there's a lot of variety that you can see across the floor.

So there's a great variety.

We have eight different categories and prizes awarded in each three painting categories oil, acrylic and watercolor.

Mixed media sculpture, three dimensional art.

This one is as a kinetic, which is sort of in our mixed media area.

We have ceramics, we have fiber art, printmaking, drawing.

I hope I've hit a book.

You have?

It's it's quite, quite an array.

And we have good representation in all the areas.

So you mentioned that this is made by Doug Laferle.

And it's funny because there's actually a portrait of him just around the corner.

Right.

Exactly.

The portrait is actually done by a wonderful, very inspiring portrait.

Harry Ahn.

And Harry's portrait is of this artist, Doug Laferle, with another of his wonderful kinetic machines.

And so there's a lovely tie there.

We put him close together, hoping people wouldn't miss that.

And so we talked to Deborah about the 30th anniversary coming up, which is on Saturday, June 14th.

But obviously with the exhibition and this goes on a lot longer.

So, how long is this here for you talk about this.

This is third out of six.

Yeah.

This particular exhibit, the MAAC runs through July 6th, and our next, series is series number four, and we will actually have four new shows, one in each of our four galleries, and we turn them over, rather rapidly.

This one closes on July 6th, and the new one opens on July 11th.

This is the point where the, interviewer says, oh my gosh, David, how in the world do you turn it over?

So, oh, do it.

We I definitely won't do it now that you asked me to.

We have a wonderful gallery of volunteers.

The box is, largely an all volunteer organization.

And, they just think it's fun to come out and help for a couple of hours and put things up.

And I was actually going to say five days seemed like it was kind of slow.

You're going to have it out a lot quicker.

No.

How about a magic wand?

You know, it's it's it's a lot of art to move in that a lot of time.

We have a lot of great volunteers who make it happen, especially in a way that protects it.

So you mentioned all these 130 artists.

I mean, for a lot of artists, they don't have a lot of outlets for their work to be shown.

So what does it mean to them when you actually do these?

For some.

For some, it's particularly special.

I was there at the intake table over a couple of days that we did that, and at least a half a dozen artists came in very excited and said, this is the first time I've ever been included in a Jerry show.

It's a real feather in their cap for a lot of folks.

Yeah, and the mission of the box is to really, exhibit regional art.

The castle and some of the other areas have a kind of a national scope.

We sort of give a preference and our, Mac show and also for, artists who would apply for solo shows later on to folks within about a 75 mile radius.

Yeah, we take things from farther away, but that really is our focus.

I love that, and that's the overall mission of this building is exactly.

And it really is a beautiful building.

And there's so much to see.

And, for people, because a lot of people watching, they may live in Elkhart or South Bend and may not really think about coming up here, but what would you say to them as an overall just perspective of this whole 55,000 square foot building?

It's it's a wonderful, dynamic place, and we try to have things going on all the time.

We generally have 2 or 3, concerts or performances, going each month.

We have an open mic every Wednesday night.

We have several groups that meet.

There's a weaving group, a spinning group.

Bob Williams teaches portrait classes twice a week.

So there's just an awful lot happen.

It's really within our mission to promote, established and emerging artists.

And, that's, we do it pretty well and pretty actively.

It's a very beautiful building, and there's lots to see here.

And, yeah, just it's really nice.

And as I mentioned, Deborah I love these buildings, you know, the stone walls and there's just something about them that they just feel better than they do buildings, the building I tell people when they come in, you know, the building is half of the treat It is in addition to the artwork on the walls, in addition to our fourth floor galleries, we actually have a couple, volunteers, who are tenants here, artists, tenants who have decided here's a little spot of empty wall.

Let's make another gallery.

We've now added, four.

We're calling them boutique galleries.

So small, intimate spaces that weren't part of our main four exhibitions.

They're not really part of our exhibition committee's efforts, but, we're turning those over about every month, and those are really a lovely opportunity for our members.

Yeah.

The guild is, the guild owns the box.

The guild is 350 members strong.

And so these small, spaces are an opportunity for art makers to show something.

They may not have three dozen pieces for a major show in one of our big galleries.

And so it provides even more opportunities.

And no space wasted.

No space wasted.

That's that's a great tagline.

We may we may use that in our marketing.

Wow.

I'll take some commission for that if there's any available.

Well, thank you so much.

I hope a lot of people show up to the concert on Saturday, but just in general, I hope they put this on the radars of places to visit.

So it's like so wonderful happening place.

Thank you for the thank you.