The coverage of the LaPorte, Indiana book release party at B & J's American Café continues!  Martha Bayne wrote a wonderful piece about the book and the party in this week's Chicago Reader.  Here's an excerpt where Bayne talks about the book and former LaPortean Pat Orzech remembers sitting for a portrait at Muralcraft Studios:

The La Porte volume is warmer in tone and more conceptually consistent than the Found books, whose sense of slice-of-life discovery is served with a sometimes unsettling dose of voyeuristic glee.  Essentially text free, save for Bitner's introduction and a foreword by Alex Kotlowitz, LaPorte, Indiana is a rich anthology of midcentury hairdos and eyewear, page after page of citizens young and old, dressed for posterity and doing their darnedest to relax.  Pease had operated Muralcraft with his wife, Gladys, who hand-colored prints, ran the office, greeted clients, and helped them with their hair and makeup.  Pat Orzech remembers being really nervous before her graduation photo, but "Gladys and Frank put you at ease," she says.  And though the photos themselves are undistinguished - all have the same natural background, the same unsurprising poses - collectively they convey a lost moment in time.

Read the full article here.

Comments

[Angela Burns]

do you have any pictures of crosslin's or smith's? they are my family mother and fathers side. thanks!