Art from the Rubble

Jay Pfeifer’s studio has the tools every handyman dreams of and the space for which an artist longs. The hand-built garage sits near Roosevelt Elementary School in North Fargo, in a network of alleyways created when Fargo was still a budding city. There’s nothing on the outside to suggest the immense creative work that goes on inside, but it’s here, in a slightly crowded space, that Pfeifer creates his large, found object artwork that elevates rusty wire, scraps of plastic, and wallboard mud to the revered standing of the finest oil painting.

Like many modern artists, Pfeifer received classical training in drawing and painting. He attended both the American River College in Sacramento and the University of Utah before returning to North Dakota, where he enrolled at NDSU. Since the university’s art department was housed in shabby Quonsets on campus, Pfeifer says he was, “able to make a mess and no one cared.”

He hurriedly added that he did receive some complaints from fellow studio-mates when he continually dragged in tar paper and other scrap finds, but his professors only encouraged him to pursue his ideas. With this newfound freedom, Pfeifer began to merge his interests in art and carpentry and demolition materials. For him, the consistency and repetition found in a pile of rubble held the same artistic designs as those found on a traditional canvas.

His North Fargo studio attests to this belief. The tables are piled high with materials he’s found on job sites or that have been given to him by friends. There are coffee cans of shattered safety glass, spools of clipped wire, a plate of wire insulator, and even the poured foundation of a shower. To Pfeifer, everything holds the potential to create a work of art, and he continually draws inspiration from construction materials.

Pfeifer states there are no underlying themes to his work; he simply creates pieces that he likes to look at. “I figured out what people liked to buy once. But then it all came down to a formula for making the landscapes: the horizon line goes two-thirds of the way up, the trees go almost all the way across . . . it was kind of boring.”

Instead, Pfeifer yearns for those “happy accidents” that make his materials a joy and surprise to work with. Showing off one of his latest pieces—an optical illusion of decreasing, rectangular wires coated with wallboard mud—Pfeifer admits, “I’d planned to space all the wire evenly, but then I ran out of wire, so I just started moving them around. I think it turned out a lot better.”

Pfeifer says it’s because of these happy accidents that he left painting and drawing. “I just felt it was too controlled. I couldn’t get things to happen by accident anymore.”

Despite the fact that he doesn’t enjoy being the center of attention, Pfeifer’s work will fill the downtown Hotel Donaldson for a three-month show. An opening reception was held to mark both the opening of his show in the restaurant and an early 50th birthday.

“My wife planned it all,” he said. “I’m really not big into birthdays.”

Pfeifer’s work is already on display at the hotel in room 12. The pieces there, however, are of a slightly different tone. Mostly collages, the works were created while Pfeifer was out of work. “I was pretty much going stir-crazy when I made them,” he admits. Those works mark the largest diversion in his portfolio.

Besides the show at the Hotel Donaldson, Pfeifer’s most recent work can be found at the new Main Ave. branch of Accent Contracting in the form of a reception desk.