The Fine Print

Colleen Rockey graduated from Western Michigan University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in painting. That year the city of Kalamazoo selected her to paint a mural downtown. The mural had faded and was peeling after years in the sun and elements. Colleen, now retired, took it upon herself to restore it.  The restoration project has been a nostalgic and sentimental trip for Colleen as she remembers where she was in her life and as a painter 44 years ago.  

Artist, professor emeritus, Western Michigan University photography pioneer and long-time supporter, Jack Carney is truly a living legend. We sat down with him to hear his story and learn more about his role in the creation of WMU’s photography program. 

Fifty years ago right now, Carney was in his second semester of teaching at Western Michigan University. Just a twenty-five-year-old “hot shot kid full of energy,” he was brought in as a member of WMU’s largest hire class, a group tasked with widening the curricular offerings at an institution known only at the time as a college for teachers.

“We newbies were given the charge by the president and provost to create a university,” Carney remembered. “The students needed more major alternatives than education.”

Carney and his peers in the Department of Art eagerly took the reins in fulfilling this lofty assignment. But no one at the time could ever have imagined just how much Carney would actually contribute. In fact, his work would ultimately earn him the moniker “founding father” of Western’s photography program.

In the well-known novel, "Mrs. Dalloway," British Modernist author Virgina Woolf detailed a day in the life of a fictional high-society woman in post-World War I England. While this stream-of-consciousness book was written nearly a century ago, its themes, messages and unique format continue to intrigue readers and stimulate artists. In fact, this story served as the muse for Adriane Little’s main sabbatical project, which opens today at the Richmond Center for Visual Arts.