Artworks Trenton’s new artistic director, Addison Vincent Pfeiffer, stands next his desk in the office that was once the East Stockton Street Sears warehouse, seemingly checks a calendar in his head, nods, and says, “Yeah, we’re a bit behind schedule.”
Pfeiffer is talking about the preparation for the one of the nonprofit arts organization’s signature events, Art All Day, set for Saturday, September 17, from noon to 6 p.m.
The event, founded in 2012, turns the city into a destination for participants to meet Trenton artists in their studios and view gallery and museum exhibitions.
Originally held in November, Pfeiffer says the organization made the decision to move the event to September in 2019. “We wanted to move it to nicer weather.”
It also enabled the organization to partner with others for outside events. That includes Ciclovia, an organization that advocates using public roads for public events.
This year Artworks is planning to use nearby Mill Hill Park as an outdoor art market as well as for events in the park’s amphitheater and the theater that houses Passage Theater.
Pfeiffer has also been working with the Mill Hill Saloon, Trenton Free Public Library, and other community partners, such as the Mercer County Parks, which is hosting its River Days Festival on the same date, and the City of Trenton, involved in closing Front Street to allow for demonstrations by Freedom Skate and Bike Works.
A map for self-guided tours, guided public art and bike tours, and a shuttle service between venues is also in the works.
“We want to bring it back to 2019,” he says about the event’s pre-pandemic success.
“Originally Art All Day wasn’t going to happen (in 2022),” he says about being behind schedule, “but with the change in management we decided that we needed the event.”
The change occurred when M’kina Tapscott, who took the position of Artworks director in January, resigned on June 1. She is currently listed as the arts-in-education coordinator for the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Tapscott followed Lauren Otis, who had been Artworks’ director since 2015.
Otis navigated the organization from one of its lowest points, a 2018 gang shooting at the organization’s annual Art All Night, through the pandemic, and then to its successful involvement with major public art programs coordinated through New Jersey Transit and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
Pfeiffer says the pandemic “was a big hurdle for a visual art center. We immediately made everything virtual: exhibitions and classes.
“It taught us a lot about the digital world. We learned that digital promotion is key. We have a part-time marketing coordinator who handles social media and the website. It was a learning curve. But that was our recent large hurdle with the pandemic.”
So was the decision to put its most public project, the 24-hour Art All Night community festival, on hold for 2022.
“The tough decision was to cancel Art All Night,” he says. “We were staring to plan and realized that it wasn’t in the cards.”
Pfeiffer cites the need to ready its traditional venue, the Roebling Wire Works, and being unable to secure a substitute location.
“We are planning Art All Night for next year. It will happen, but where it will happen is an open question,” he says. “People who supported Art All Night are still supporting, and support has grown.”
The “we” Pfeiffer refers to is both the board and the new administration, made up of three individuals already involved with Artworks.
Pfeiffer has served the organization since 2012 as gallery director. The new managing director is Craig Shofed, an artist and curator previously active with Artworks in a variety of volunteer roles. And artist and educator Jonathan Connor has been involved as the public projects coordinator and is now implementing Artworks’ newest project, the federal funding art walk project that connects the Trenton Transit Center to downtown.
Pfeiffer says the project will use art to transform the currently industrialized and fragmented road and pavement strip to a visually appealing pathway connecting the station with the nearby Mill Hill neighborhood and downtown Trenton.
It builds on the Artworks-led 2021 New Jersey Transit Crosswalk and Banner Project that began to establish a visual pattern and presence that the new project will continue.
Pfeiffer says, “Studies need to be done from transit center to downtown, but we’ll have art and light under the (Route 1 overpass) bridge, and sculpture and landscape to beautify the walk.” Artworks is working with the city and state on the project, and the organization will be involved with infrastructure studies and getting feedback from the community.
The project got a strong boost in July 2022 when Trenton district Congresswoman and member of the House Appropriation Committee, Bonnie Watson Coleman, announced a $500,000 federal award for the project.
“With Bonnie Watson Coleman securing money for the project, it will make it easier to work with other people to make that happen,” says Pfeiffer, who notes the project is expected to continue for the next two to three years.
With a background that mixes business and art, Pfeiffer was raised in Spotswood, New Jersey, where his mother managed a family-owned bakery and his father was an engineer for the U.S. Post Office.
“I originally went (to the University of Hartford) for business and decided to pursue art. Business wasn’t for me. I left Hartford and went to Gibbs school and started working as a graphic designer straight out of school. I did graphic design for five years. But I wanted to pursue painting. My goal was to be a painter.”
He says some of his interest in art came from his father. “(He) was a draftsman, illustrator, but never did it professionally. I think that is what pushed me.”
However, he says he had also “dabbled in art before I could hold a crayon — drawing, sketching. It wasn’t until I was in school that I discovered I could make a living in art.”
The decision came during his sophomore year in college. “I knew how to run a business. I could use my skills and apply it to art. I could make something of it.
“Once I was working as a graphic designer, I started doing logo designs, stationery, and corporate identity packages. But it wasn’t what I wanted to do.
“In 2001 I got my first commission to paint something. I did research on what it took to do commission work, contracts, etc. Now I’ll take on five commissions a year.”
About his own artwork, the married Bucks County father of two says, “Originally, I wanted to be a painter. But I was exposed to other mediums that I never thought were part of fine art — print, digital.
“I started using them in my work. I’m more of a mixed media artist. I like blending mediums that you would never put together: digital photography and manipulation and using new technologies — experimenting with new material.”
While he says he “loves surrealism” and incorporates similar techniques, he says he prefers not to “pigeon hole” his work and pulls from various schools and traditions.
“I am attracted to the process, so there is no one subject that I like to focus on. It’s the process,” he says. “I joke, ‘I don’t care what the final product is; it’s the journey to the product.’ I paint organically. I don’t have a clear vision of what it will look like. I start painting, and it will change a couple of thousand times.
“Then I get to the point when I say, ‘Seal it (with varnish) and call it a day.’ There are works that are three years old that I can’t seal. When I add that final varnishing, I know the work is done.”
Yet, as he talks, business seeps back into the conversation, and is also part of an early interest or, as he calls it, a natural knack. “It goes way back to kindergarten and selling drawings. (I’d have a) roadside art show and sell my pictures for a quarter. I made a couple of dollars over the summer. As the sales were going up, so was the pricing. I just had a natural inclination on how art could sell and knew my worth. If I sold for 10 cents one day, I could raise the price.”
His proclivity for business was also rewarded in school. “I was pushed into business math courses, future business men of America. I remember my guidance counselor saying you should go to school for business, and I applied and was accepted. “
Looking back, he says, “I was a naïve student. I listened to a guidance counselor.”
Returning to the business at hand, Pfeiffer says that the organization is busy “catching up for the shows that were planned before the pandemic.”
That includes the Punk Rock Flea Market co-coordinated “Bold Will Hold” exhibition on tattoo art. “We have a lot of submissions — flash art and tattoo inspired art. (The show) ties in with counter culture.” It runs October 25 through November 19 with a reception set for Friday, November 4.
Also coming up is “Ten by Ten,” the annual December fundraising exhibition where area artists of all levels create 10 inch-by-10 inch works sold for $100 each, with proceeds shared between the artist and Artworks.
Pfeiffer calls it “one of our biggest draws. We have people lining up two hours in advance at the door.”
When the pandemic forced the organization to present a virtual preview, they discovered an unexpected benefit: 50 to 60 pieces were already sold when sales were officially opened.
“The virtual exhibition kept the number down, but we had our best sales. That was one of things we learned during the pandemic. Works shipped to California, Chicago, all over the country through word of mouth and family members. It is a good cause.”
Returning to the calendar in his mind and looking at the future, Pfeiffer says, “Craig and I have a similar vision as to where we want Artworks to go. We always have been heavily connected and we want to bring that forward. That leads back to our vision and our goal to push community. It has always been to connect community culture through the arts. We want to push it beyond to be more than an art center and be a community center. And coming out of the pandemic was the best to time to reinvent our ourselves.”
Art All Day, Artworks Trenton, 19 Everett Alley (at Stockton Street), Trenton, September 17, noon to 6 p.m., gallery exhibition, 6 to 8 p.m. Free. 609-394-9436 or www.artworkstrenton.org.
