All Aboard: James Peeples, a Trenton-based electrician, will serve as a tour guide during the November 14 Art All Day event.
By Ron Shapella
James T. Peeples has become one of the unsung few who can be relied upon in the Trenton art scene. Until the end of June, Peeples, 50, was on the board of Artworks, having served since 2009 at one of the long-standing bastions of creative self-expression in Trenton.
Artworks is the entity that hosts two of Trenton’s “don’t miss” annual events: the start of summer “Art all Night” and the mid-fall “Art All Day,” when art lovers take self-guided tours of the city’s artist studios, gallery spaces, and other locations where art can be found.
The next “Art All Day” is Saturday, November 14, and Peeples is on board. “My current role with Art All Day is as one of the people,” says Peeples. “We’re having trolley tours throughout the city, and I will be running a few of them. The trolleys will depart from Artworks. There’s a $10 suggested donation. There’s a knowledgeable tour guide on each trolley. We’ll be making stops at various locations throughout town. We’ll be highlighting public art and studios throughout the city.
“We hit things like the New Jersey State Museum and all the murals that are around, and all the statues that might be hidden, the Gandhi Garden, the galleries on Hanover, places where art exists. We are going to highlight them. You can go to Artworks and get a map and drive around if you want. Or you can cast in with our lot. It’s one of those tourist type things that the city could definitely take advantage of,” he says.
It’s easy to see why a board might want someone like Peeples. He is a Trenton-based electrician with a specialty in IT by trade and a photographer who gets his work into Art All Night from time to time. That includes work using found objects from the September 11 attacks and photographs of the late jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr.
Peeples was born and raised in Ewing Township, graduating in Ewing High School’s Class of ‘83. “A short stint in the Air Force took me out of New Jersey for a little while,” he says, “but other than that I’ve been in and around Mercer County all my life.”
Both parents were Trenton Central High School grads. His father was a machinist’s mate in the navy and afterward worked in the Fairless Steel in Pennsylvania. “I know my father was one of the earliest black electricians on the East Coast,” Peeples says. “My dad died when I was seven years old, and my mom died when I was 17.”
He has two older brothers. John works in IT for the State of New Jersey, and Joseph is the president of Allied Federal Electric Corporation, the family business on Church Street in Trenton, where Peeples also works. His sister, Vera, the oldest, is retired from Verizon.
Peeples, who has never married and has no children, owns the family house. “It’s been in our family for a very, very long time,” he says. “It’s a very, very old house. At one point it was an old farmhouse. Ewing Park is an interesting area. It was always a black enclave. It was inhabited by hard-working blue collar families. You could literally go through my neighborhood and have people build your house. Dig your basement, pave your driveway, build your house.
Peeples attended the College of New Jersey from 1985 to 1990, studying electronics engineering technology, political science, and public administration. “I left college to go into the IT field,” he says. “I had a tech background. I had a computer in my hands since I was 16 years old. I had an opportunity to make some money, and I took it. After that I said my family business needs somebody. I’ll start at the bottom and worked my way up. We do work from the Shore to Pennsylvania. We’ll go to New York and as far south as Delaware,” he says.
So it was no surprise that Peeples could be found on a recent Saturday afternoon tending to a wiring a glitch behind the stage hours before the final Levitt Amp concert on the Capital Green behind the State House. Hours before the Dean Ween Group was to perform, Cameron Ferrara, who coordinates events in the city for the Trenton Downtown Association, gave Peeples a call.
“We’ve done all the hookups before,” Peeples says. “It was just the luck of the draw how all that happened. Cameron called me and asked whether I would be in Trenton, could I stop by. We stopped by Home Depot; it was like an episode from Keystone Kops. We literally took things off the shelf, found the part we needed, bought that device, and off we went.”
If you talk with Peeples for any time at all, you get the feeling that he spends a lot of time in thought as he unspools wire and gets projects ready for other people. There is the project in Guatemala that he participated in about 15 years ago that he hopes to return to sometime soon.
“I got involved with a group at the Allentown Presbyterian Church,” he says. “It was back in the 1990s when I did that. One of the people involved with that was a photographer in Allentown, Jeff Martin, who had a studio, and I worked as his assistant. Jeff was very instrumental in the business of doing photography and how images were crafted.”
Peeples also finds himself in various groups, some formal, others ad hoc. One is Bridge MVP, which stands for music, videography, and photography. “We all work together to do weddings and parties and events. We’re just trying to make some money doing what we love,” he says.
Another is Power and Light Photography. “That plays on the two things I do for a living. I needed a name for it, and I found my dad’s old business card (from 1973). It’s so old that it has the letters T-U as the first two numbers in the phone number. There’s probably no one in their 20s who know about that, using letters from the telephone keypad.”
Then there is Peeples Choice Consulting, where he focuses his IT expertise. “It’s a small mid-size business company that I use to do what I’m doing right now. One of the reasons my brother and I decided to get into business together is to combine what he does and what I do. He focuses more on the high voltage side; I focus on the low voltage side. My brother has been a union electrician for more than 30 years. He’s done everything from industrial to residential.”
Peeples remains interested in joining a nonprofit board and continues to work with Artworks. “I’m still interested in giving to the community,” he says. It doesn’t have to be in the arts, although he sees its importance. “One thing I’ve always stood by: Violence has always been the language everyone understands. By expanding people’s language they understand how to speak, dance and draw. If you want to eliminate violence, give them another language to communicate in. Give people another way to express the emotions they have. By language I mean other methods of expression.
“I’ve seen it change people’s lives. Has it changed my life? Yes it has. I’ve seen myself become more grounded. It’s because I have the ability to express myself in other ways. It’s my theory. But if you look at it in your own life if you didn’t have the ability to express yourself, how would you have your needs met?”
November 14: When art saturates the city
Trenton’s fourth annual Art All Day, the free open studio tour and creative showcase on Saturday, November 14, from noon to 5 p.m., will feature more than 85 artists of all disciplines and nonprofit and business innovators at 25 sites throughout the city.
Attendees can stop by Artworks at 19 Everett Alley to pick up a free Art All Day map/program and plan their own itinerary or enjoy an insider’s perspective on guided trolley, bicycle, and walking tours led by guides active in Trenton’s creative revival.
Attractions include the debut of Trenton’s first Latino arts space, tours of new sculptures, murals, urban farm projects, neighborhood revitalization efforts, studio tours, and pop-up galleries. Also on schedule: film, dance, and music performances. Food truck fare, hot coffee, and other refreshments will be available at Artworks throughout the day.
Photography, painting, and sculpture demos and other art-making activities will take place throughout the day at Artworks and other Art All Day sites.
After the tour, all visitors are invited to a free reception at Artworks’ main gallery from 5 to 8 p.m., where the “Artists of Art All Day” group show will be hung.
Art All Day, information and updates at artworkstrenton.org/art-all-day/, on the Art All Day Facebook page, or on Twitter: @AADTrenton.
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Art All Day is a production of Artworks, 19 Everett Alley, Trenton.
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