Lauren Otis
Trenton artist Lauren Otis helped launch Art All Day, set to return Nov. 9
By Dan Aubrey
“It’s a stressful time,” says Trenton-based artist, journalist, and freelance communication specialist Lauren Otis on the final day of signups for Art All Day artists. “We’re trying to piece together that network of artists.”
Art All Day — set for Saturday, Nov. 9 from noon to 5 p.m. — is a lively afternoon of capital city artist studio visits, open gallery exhibitions, and arts events. Otis, a 25-year resident of the city, spearheads the event through Artworks, the nonprofit arts center that he is a board member and sometimes project coordinator for.
Otis was instrumental in launching the initial event last November, and said Art All Day is close to his heart.
“There is a lot of creativity in Trenton that people on the outside don’t see. When (attendees) show up and see all these creative young people, it is very hearting. There’s a lot going on,” he said. “One day never gets you seeing everything, but art all day is just one day and it gives people one taste of what is going on and people will come back and see more.”
Those tastes include the participation of more than 70 area artists throughout the city, Trenton Art Trolley Rides, bicycle art tours, maps for guided studio tours, the Trenton Punk Rock Flea Market, and opportunities to see artists at work, including area graffiti and street artists Will Kasso and Leon Rainbow, the Abominog Arts Collective’s iron pouring, and nationally recognized Trenton-based painter Mel Leipzig painting on site at the New Jersey State Museum. The afternoon concludes with 5 to 8 p.m. reception for participating artists and visitors at Artworks.
The event will also allow visitors to see Otis’ studio in the old Polish Falcon’s Hall on Cass Street, a building he owns with fellow Trenton-based artist Andrew Wilkinson.
In his second floor work area, Otis — surrounded by vacuum tube radios, black and white photographs, and out of date recording devices — talks about Art All day and his own work.
While the technology one sees in the early 20th club room is dated — equipped with an old kitchen and men and women rooms —it’s clear that the artist is willing to embrace new technology, as demonstrated by his website, alchemicalprojects.com.
“The website is a very personal website and it is part of me,” says Otis.
So is the reference to alchemy.
“My business card says ‘Alchemical Projects — Creating projects out of thin air,’” Otis says, “I like creating ideas out of nothing. An idea hatches in the mind and winds up on the wall or written page that has value and substance.”
“I have had a lifelong interest in alchemy — which I think is misunderstood — but it actually encompasses knowledge and spirituality and faith. There are these building blocks that you create something golden, if not gold. It’s like Trenton where we want to make something,” he said. “The life of the mind can be transformative. I love discussing ideas and cool concepts.”
Otis says he creates artistic alchemy using four sources that have played a part in his life: liquid, visuals, sound, and words.
“I left my job at the Princeton Packet to work at a New Jersey winery,“ says Otis when asked about liquid and art. Initially it was full-time position at Unionville Winery in Ringoes, but now it’s part-time administration and sales at Hopewell Valley Vineyards. At both locations, he was exposed to the transformation of one substance to another, a process that connects to the creation of art and the concept of transcendence.
“I think the process of distilling is a fascinating process, where something evaporates and recondenses as a new substance,” he said.
Otis has been a photographer since he was in grade school. Regarding his visual art, Otis says his interest in photography continued after he moved to Trenton in 1989. It was part of his way of getting to know the city.
“I was pretty much a photographer going through all sorts of neighbors and meeting all kinds of people. I still take plenty of photographs and consider my photography, but my work evolved to create street portraits,” he said. He also began kayaking and taking photos of the city and the bridges.
Another photo series focuses on the “ghosts” of Trenton architecture.
“I love the old infrastructure of the buildings, and I would take black and white portraits of the buildings and hand-tint them. I like the idea of using hand-tinting the gritty city. As some of the buildings got renovated I would pair the portrait with the repairs, like a before and after,” he said.
In addition to working with visuals, Otis works with sound, examples of which can be found on his website.
“I always loved music and love ambient sound. We are all used to listening on a park lawn and listening to the birds. Moving in the sound realm, expand the art. I love sound pieces,” he said.
Word art, he says, was the next visual step. “Moving into the realm of word art, the concept of words and fonts guiding us. I became obsessed with typewriters with the idea that there is an echo in our society. I started making videos and text pieces with typewriter fonts,” he said.
“I continued to do text pieces, but — and I don’t know how it happened — I then moved into visual art again. I call them color control bars: a series of identical shapes yet imbued with colors,” he said.
Otis is talking about the tiny codes —tiny colored squares —- found on packages, everything from Scott toilet tissue to Brooklyn Brewery beer.
“It’s a commercial language,” he said.
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The codes, along with his photos, sound pieces, and graphics, will all be part of his Art All Day studio offerings, as well as some new city-inspired art.
Otis was born outside Detroit. When he was three, his family to New York City. He said he formed an affinity for adventure in as a teenager in New York in the 1970s, and he’s never lost his enthusiasm for it.
His introduction to the New Jersey’s capital city came by train, while studying English literature, physics, and art history at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 1977 to 1981. On train trips home to see his parents, he would see the city as it went by.
In the late 1980s Otis had returned to New York City and was living with Debbie Osgood, who decided to take a portfolio and assessment management position with Merrill Lynch in Princeton. He said rather than move to Princeton, he was adamant about finding an interesting urban area to live in, so they looked at New Brunswick before settling in Trenton’s Mill Hill.
About his livelihood in those days, Otis says that he was mostly a magazine writer who wrote features for the New York Times and the Trenton Times and edited the public policy group of New Jersey. His last job in old media was with as business editor of the Princeton Packet.
His father was an architect and urban planner who worked for New York City’s planning department for 25 years. His mother worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a paper conservator in the prints and drawings department, so art came naturally to him.
“I grew up in a family where art mattered and we talked about politics, city planning, and cities. We would go on trips when we get to other cities. My father served on the city art commission, so public art was always discussed,” he said. “There were always discussions about artists’ intent. I grew up in a family where the arts and ideas were important. And a commitment to living in an urban area was given. I have lived in cities my whole life,” he said.
He has also seen how city’s can come back from turmoil.
“New York City in the 1970s was not the city that is today. I remember when Soho in Manhattan was a no man’s land. I saw that artists can gentrify places and be the first step in seeing cities coming back,” he said. “Soho is the standard. Greenpoint, Brooklyn, became what it is now. That’s what I say to people in Trenton. Remember what Northern Liberties (in Philadelphia) was 25 years ago? We have an incredible creative foundation and perhaps it will attract other people, and, in our life time, perhaps Trenton will become a fascinating city.”
But for the coming weeks, there’s the big push to get ready.
Art All Day, Saturday, Nov. 9, various tours and events throughout city, Noon to 5 p.m., reception 5 to 8 p.m.; self-guided tours begin at Artworks, 19 Everett Alley, Trenton. Gallery exhibitions, studio visits, and reception free. Trolley Tours, $10 suggested donations. Trenton Punk Rock Flea Market, $4 admission. New Jersey State Museum, $5 suggested admission. On the Web: artworkstrenton.org.
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A partial list of Art All Day events:
Noon to 5 p.m.: Studios and creative spaces open to the public, trolleys continuously operating along designated art route (pick up trolleys at Artworks or anywhere along the route)
Noon to 8 p.m.: Artworks main gallery open to the public, featuring Artists of Art All Day group show
Noon to 3 p.m.: Wills Kinsley special Art All Day bike tours (bring your own bike).
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Live painting at multiple AAD sites:
Mel Leipzig at New Jersey State Museum, 205 W. State Street
Mek and Lank at the Roebling Wire Works, 675 S. Clinton Avenue (site of the Trenton Punk Rock Flea Market).
Will Kasso at 219 E. Hanover St.
Leon Rainbow at 202 E. Canal St.
Noon to 5 p.m., AbOminOg aluminum scratch mold workshop and molten pour at 2 Pearl Street ($40, $20 for children under 15).
Noon to 2 p.m. Poet Marion Deutsche Cohen reads from the new book “Still the End,” Classics Books, 4 W. Lafayette St.
1:30 p.m.: Trenton’s Roebling legacy tour conducted by Roebling author and historian Clifford Zink (meet at Art All Day table at entrance to Roebling Wire Works building).
2 p.m.: Special public art trolley tour narrated by Trenton art historian and U.S. 1 arts editor Dan Aubrey (meet in Artworks parking lot).
2 p.m.: NJ State Museum curator of fine art Margaret O’Reilly leads a gallery walk through museum galleries housing “American Perspectives: The Fine Art Collection.”
5 to 8 p.m.: Art All Day reception.
8 – 10 p.m.: World Premier of “True Story” by EM Lewis, Mill Hill Playhouse, 205 E. Front St. (call 609-392-0766 regarding special ticket discount for AAD attendees).