Bringing on the Joy

By JENNIFER P. HENDERSON

Photographs by KARIN BELGRAVE

WITH A NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT THE HELM AND A FRESH P.O.V. COURTESY OF THE PANDEMIC, THE ARTS COUNCIL OF PRINCETON IS CONTINUING ITS GOOD ARTISTIC WORK, BUILDING A CREATIVE COMMUNITY ONE CLASS, PUBLIC-ART INSTALLATION, AND LOCAL EVENT AT A TIME

A small, masked group stands in the basement pottery studio of the five-level Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, in downtown Princeton, mesmerized as ceramicist Adam Welch works a square hunk of terra-cotta clay at the wheel. Despite the group looking on (which includes a photographer snapping pictures), Welch is deeply absorbed in his work, shaping the mud with ease and within minutes revealing something that looks an awful lot like a lovely vase. Another lump of clay is soon transformed into a bowl. He seems on his way to completing an entire place setting.

“Each piece I make, it gets a lot of handling,” Welch says with a laugh. “After you make it, you trim it then you smooth it out, and then you have to shape it. I’m really into the ‘handedness’ of things. I don’t even care if it sits flat. It’s the kind of thing where I like to highlight and emphasize the handmade quality of it all.”

This emphasis on getting your hands dirty (literally and figuratively) in the process of creating art is a mindset Welch has brought to his new post as executive director of the Arts Council of Princeton (ACP). An artist, art critic, and educator, Welch had his work shown at the Arts Council well before he stepped into the role in the fall of 2020—right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I’ve only been here since September 2020, and in that short amount of time, so many things have opened up and changed and shifted,” he says. “It’s all been very positive, and there definitely feels like there’s a new energy, which has been great.”

This new energy is due in part to Welch’s fresh perspective on how one brings art into a community, as well as the restrictions he and the indefatigable ACP staff were required to operate around over the past year. It was these new parameters that forced the group to reevaluate, readjust, and in many ways reinvent how the Arts Council approached, well, everything. This candid reflection also ushered in a fresh sensibility of approachability, as well.

“I saw it as a great opportunity and sort of liberating,” Welch says. “One thing I’ve noticed about organizations like these, particularly nonprofits, is that they are based on this model where tradition takes over and it becomes very difficult to make any change. Coming in at this time means all you can do is change. I think it was actually the best possible time to start a new job.”

A resident of Hightstown, New Jersey, Welch had spent 17 years working for a social-service organization, in New York City, where he ran the pottery school. For the past decade, he’d also taught a ceramics course at Princeton University. (A potter by trade, Welch has tried his hand at several other artistic disciplines, too, including furniture building, painting, welding, stone carving, glass-blowing, drawing, and totem-pole carving, which he did for eight years while working in Alaska). So, when the position at the Arts Council came along, he saw it as a chance to do something new and invigorating, and do it all closer to home.

“Working within a social-service organization, all you do is talk about community. I found myself working a lot of hours and putting in a lot of time and energy into communities that I wasn’t living in, and my family couldn’t take advantage of,” he says. “Now we can come to the exhibitions, we can come to the performances, and really make an impact closer to home.”

Making an impact is something the Arts Council has been doing since it was established, in 1967. The ACP’s mission “to build community through the arts” is one that has never wavered, and as Welch sees it, is something to continue to nurture and expand on particularly during a time when every experience is being reevaluated and reimagined—and the needs of any one community are much more diverse and expansive than ever before.

“The reality is there’s not one community,” Welch says. “There is the writing community, which is very specific. And then you have the kids’ side of things, and then the professional artists, and the amateur artists. You have multiple communities, and it’s about strengthening them and helping them achieve what it is they’re after: building a technique, learning a different skill, or looking for social interactions and a way to be a part of something.”

As many in and around Princeton already know, the heart of this community-building practice is the ACP’s superlative educational programming. From its boisterous summer camp (to wit, the ACP’s lower gallery space was converted into a studio for this season’s campers) to year-round classes for kids and adults led by a cadre of professional artist-educators in every discipline from drawing and writing to ceramics and flamenco dancing, the ACP is dedicated to extending the creativity into the many neighborhoods and communities within its reach. Welch, who has taken the aforementioned flamenco dancing class, has a “functional sensibility” and a point of view on art that is far more expansive than the “paint-on-canvas stuff” and that inspires him to think outside of the fine-arts box to expand the already rich program.

“I think that the definition of art is far more expansive than a lot of people regularly can see,” he says. “For instance, I’m a fly-angler hobbyist, and my neighbor is an Orvis Pro, so we tie flies. When I was looking at his flies, they’re just works of art. So much creativity goes into them. So, the ACP introduced a fly-tying class this past winter. That’s something that’s never been seen here before, and what’s also nice about that kind of class is that it taps into a group of people who never would have set foot in the building. It was an opportunity to capture the attention of people that might not otherwise think about what they’re doing as an art form.”

ACP also has seized the community’s attention with public art, and particularly over the past year. While the idea of public art is nothing new to the area, per se—the ACP’s collaborative, communal Princeton Parklet project, which is this year located outside of Chez Alice Bakery on Palmer Square, is now in its fifth iteration—the frequency with which it has recently emerged in the community is something to note: In addition to the 2012 Illia Barger mural on the side of the Terra Momo Bread Company building on Witherspoon Street, street-art installations now provide unexpected bursts of color on the corners of Spring and John streets, as well as on once-empty wall space in the Princeton Shopping Center (see next page for more details). Plans also are in the works to add to and in some cases paint over existing murals with new ones, and also expand to the literal streets (read: asphalt and sidewalks).

“These projects help]build a creative community. People see art more frequently and more readily, and I think ultimately that helps everyone expand in the deepest sense of things,” Welch says. “Our work has the capacity to expand our worldview. And people might hate what they see, but I think the creative capacity that other people display helps consciously or unconsciously open our minds a little bit more to other people and to other people’s creative expression.”

Infusing creativity into a place means nurturing those who are responsible for it, namely the artistic community—a matter that is top of mind for Welch, as he seeks to enhance the ACP’s support of the area’s professional creators beyond the organization’s walls.

“I think the Arts Council had been doing a good job of this before I started, and we want to make sure that we continue to offer the community and the artist community opportunities besides just being a place where you take classes.”

One way the ACP has been reaching across the professional-amateur artist divide is through its Artist-in-Residence program. Established in 2009, the Anne Reeves Artist-in-Residence Program selects one to two artists a year, and gives them

Welch (center) with members of the ACP team, including (clockwise, from left) Layla Cabrera, Jeandalize Caba, Mini Krishnan, Erin Armington, Maria Evans, Caroline Cleaves, and Melissa Kuscin.

the chance to develop and create new works that can be shared within the community. The fine-art photographer Robin Resch is the ACP’s Winter 2021 Artist-in-Residence, and during her tenure, she has expanded her documentary project, Taking Pause: a series of portraits and conversations with individuals about their experiences during the pandemic. Five of these arresting portrait-and-story sets are on view through October, in Dohm Alley, located near the corner of Nassau and Witherspoon streets. The ACP supported the project financially, as well as through promotion, publicity, and Zoom and outdoor events.

The ACP also does an annual call for proposals to exhibit in its gallery; this year they are hoping to cultivate exhibitions that “celebrate art’s power to lift us out of darkness … and reflect a sense of optimism.” Artists are asked to embrace that theme in any medium or method they like, and although the selection process is competitive (there are only five to seven available slots), it’s another way the ACP bolsters professional artists by providing them with the opportunity to exhibit their work on a larger scale. A newer program is the Princeton Pecha: Inspired by the Japanese PechaKucha exhibition format, the Princeton Pecha brings together local artists in a fast-moving virtual program where they show 20 slides for 20 seconds each. The fourth Princeton Pecha, held this September, was virtually open to the public and showcased Trenton-based photographers Habiyb Ali Shu’Aib (Beloved I) and Brass Rabbit.

For the winter-holiday season, the ACP will further bring the professional-artisans into the community through annual events like the “Sauce for the Goose” outdoor art market beginning November 3, and the Winter Village Artist Chalets on Hinds Plaza from November 23 through December 19, which gives an artist or crafts person the chance to have a storefront gallery in downtown Princeton. Looking toward the spring of next year, the ACP is currently revaluating the stalwart Communiversity, which is Central New Jersey’s longest-running cultural event, drawing art aficionados to downtown Princeton since 1971.

Of course, there is the ever-present topic of how the ACP is able to sustain all of this incredible programming. Welch is quick to point out that they do not receive any sort of municipality funding, so they need to get creative (pun intended) with their fundraising. Occasionally it involves reaching out to friends of the organization (and actual friends), and building strategic partnerships and securing sponsors to offset costs. There are the ACP’s signature events, like “Pinot to Picasso” and “Dining by Design” (which were paused due to the pandemic); this September’s “How Deep Is Your Love” disco-themed cocktail party is a hybrid model of these past live events.

Another way the ACP is approaching the idea of fundraising in this brave new world is with scaled-down moments like “The Art of …” series that taps local masters in crafts like wine and coffee, and “The Mayday Bowl Project,” for which Welch and ACP’s potters handmade bowls to be sold. On October 23, there will be an ACP pop-up beer garden featuring a craft brewery that’s created a beer especially for the Arts Council along with Welchmade beer-stein-style mugs. All of these community touchpoints collectively translate to more ways for the ACP to continue to conceive of and build creative bridges within the community. While Welch and his team remain invigorated and committed, they also know that there are new and different challenges that lie ahead.

“The greatest challenge is to continue to be able to execute on all of these things, and still be something that we can afford,” he says. “But what I’m most interested in and most aware of is highlighting the role and the importance of the arts in our town—and maintaining and growing the love the community has for this place, too.

Art In Our Streets

The footprint (or, paint print) of many of the area’s creative talents can be seen all around town, like guideposts along the streets of the creative community the ACP has made it its mission to nurture.

“Public art is another opportunity for artists to get experience, to practice their chops,” Welch says. And while we wait for the next mural reveal, here is a guide to the painted beauties that can be found in our streets right now.

The Arts Council of Princeton, 102 Witherspoon Street, Princeton; 609.924.8777 or artsouncilofprinceton.org.

JOURNEY, 2019:

Tucked away on the corner of John Street and Leigh Avenue, in Princeton’s WitherspoonJackson neighborhood, is this mural by lead artist and ACP Fall 2019 Artist-in-Residence Marlon Davila, who grew up in the area and used the concept “migration and making a home where you land” as his inspiration.

CONTINUUM, 2012:

The renowned painter of large-scale works, Illia Barger was the 2012 ACP Artist-in-Residence who was commissioned by the Arts Council and Terra Momo Bread Company to commemorate in paint three temporary public-art installations located on Princeton’s Paul Robeson Place from 2002 through 2009: Terra Momo’s Herban Garden, and the Writers Block and Quark Park sculpture gardens. BRING ON THE JOY!, 2021:

In partnership with the Princeton Shopping Center, a team of ACP artists—Maria Evans, Melissa Kuscin, Lisa Walsh, and Fiona Chinkan—brought this bold, bright, jubilant mural to life, a reflection of the center’s call for connection and community during these challenging times. Rumor has it new murals are in the works for the space, and will be unveiled over the next several months.

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, 2014:

This hidden graffiti gem can be found in the ACP staff parking lot, just off of Witherspoon Street. The mural, “a stylized, interpretative take on the Underground Railroad,” was completed by artists Will “Kasso” Condry and James “Luv 1” Kelewae of Trenton’s S.A.G.E. Coalition during ACP’s Fall Open House.

HELLO WORLD, 2021:

After a long, cold winter, this mural emerged at the top of Spring Street, in Princeton, a much-needed explosion of sunshine and color that heralded a new season— and a new day. Local business Andrena underwrote the street art that was brought to life by a crack team of ACP’s best artisans.

Editor’s Note: At press time, a brand-new mural was already in the works at this location.