The Mark 14 torpedo, manufactured in the Torpedo Factory based on the Potomac River in Old Town Alexandria, had serious navigation issues.
Some would run in circles after being fired or, more alarmingly, circle back to the vessel that fired it and blow it up.
It was a complicated piece of machinery with a lot of moving parts, and its navigation issues centered on internal mechanics that were constantly tweaked in attempts to correct its function.
At the end of World War II, the factory was shuttered, becoming a storage space for government records and a local hangout where pot was sold in the shadows. Alexandria bought the building in 1969.
In September 1974, the refurbished factory opened as the Torpedo Factory Art Center. It was renovated again in 1983 as part of the city’s waterfront development, and it reopened as a studio community that today houses 165 area artists working out of 82 studios. It has been hailed as an example of one of the most unique reuses of industrial spaces in the country and the crown jewel of the Alexandria cultural community.
But just like the faulty torpedoes made there, the center is experiencing problems with direction and issues with internal mechanics that were identified in a consultant’s report released this past January.
The report by the Cultural Planning Group, “Torpedo Factory Art Center Business Analysis and Recommendations,” was commissioned by the Torpedo Factory Art Center Board, the city’s appointed liaison to the artist community at the center, as a way to develop a business plan for the 501(c)(3) organization and set goals and strategies for the coming year and beyond in advance of a new lease with the city.
But instead of a definitive way forward, the report uncovered more disturbing details about the convoluted management structure, where the TFACB, the prime leaseholder with the city, holds two subleases: one with the Art League and one with the Torpedo Factory Artists’ Association. The TFAA itself holds subleases with individual artists for their studios.
The report found that the resulting confusion about who really manages the center created a “culture of dysfunction” and that having the TFAA and TFACB working on separate lease agreements “does not work well operationally.”
“What the consultants found was that until the foundational structure was realigned, developing a business plan was going to be difficult,” says Diane Ruggiero, member of the TFACB and deputy director of recreation, parks and cultural activities for Alexandria.
The TFAA president, Don Viehman, who is also one of the artists in the center, says that the information in the report about issues with management of the center was not news to anybody. “It was no secret that people were not happy about that, and the report documented it.” But, he says, where the report “went off the tracks” a little was to generalize about not just the management structure but the role the artists play in the issue.
“That was hard to hear,” he says. “It’s not like we never made mistakes, but by and large we did a pretty good job.”
In May, the city, as the owner of the building, stepped in to address fallout from the report and decided to streamline the leasing process to provide a three-month period of short-term stability while discussions continue on the best way to manage the building’s tenants—the TFAA artists; the in-house cafe, Bread & Chocolate; and the Art League. The city is now reviewing the tenants’ current leases. “Over this three-month period, the work will involve what those lease agreements look like,” Emily Baker, deputy city manager for Alexandria, says. “Our intent is not to change the rules of what is governing the artists right now about how they spend their time in the studios,” she says. “But we need to get an understanding of exactly what the leases and guidelines say and if there are ways we can simplify the agreements, and the language, to make them less cumbersome to be administered.”
Alexandria City Manager Mark Jinks says that there have been rumors floating around about what was going to happen to the center as a result of more press coverage in the wake of the CPG report. “I was pleased and somewhat surprised that there was near universal agreement that our action of temporarily stepping in is the right thing to do,” he says.
The report comes at a time when construction is just beginning on the approved waterfront development plan. City leaders want to make sure the city’s major cultural amenity fits well into the key themes of the waterfront development, art and history.
Jinks says he sees the waterfront plan as being very complementary to the mission of the center. “The Torpedo Factory is going to spill out of its building in a sense for this art on the waterfront plan,” he says. “You are going to see more art and more artists work[ing] outside of the building so that people experience the art out in the Alexandria community, [and] that would encourage them to go inside,” he says.
As the leases are reviewed and management changes are considered, what happens next is still up in the air, and it’s that uncertainty, that fear of change, that is making the artists in the center nervous. “The details are not clear at the moment,” Viehman says. “I am not sure anybody knows what it means at the moment. But the artists want to be involved in their environment, and they want to be making decisions about what happens to them.”
“Communication is the biggest struggle in the last three years,” Mike Detomo, an architect and the president of the TFACB, says. “You have the city staff, the city council, the waterfront development people, the working artists, the community. All of them need to work on communication.”
On the surface, this issue of who is in charge and why seems to be a case of commerce versus art, where the city is suspected of being the bad guy affecting the livelihood of artists who just want to do their thing without dealing with bureaucratic pressures.
“I don’t see this as a ‘both sides’ issue,” Detomo says. “The city wants to be involved because they are the leaseholder, and they understand how the center supports the community and the economy. The artist realizes that this is their livelihood, but they are not on opposite sides. This is one story. It’s really a story about how we are building unity.”
In the midst of all of this disruptive shuffling, the artists at the center are keeping an open mind and trying to make sure that the city understands how important they are to the city’s future. So, for now, life—and art—goes on.
The artists’ job at the center is to interact with visitors and be cultural ambassadors for the city. They sign up for space with the understanding that they should be demonstrating the magic of creation for visitors, which is a relatively unique concept in the art world that has always been at the root of the center’s mission. “Visitors can really be inspired by that interaction,” Viehman says. “So part of what we do is sell inspiration, in a way. That is a great thing.”
Eric Wallner, CEO of the Torpedo Factory Art Center, says that he thinks they are moving toward an independent and functional nonprofit board that would represent the interests of all stakeholders. “It would operate in a manner that allows us to raise funds and create programming,” he says. “That would create a lot of synergy and alignment of our mission with our operations.”
Detomo says that the conversation that is happening now is about how the stakeholders take this art center and make it the best version of itself, not only as the epicenter of the waterfront but reflective of changes in contemporary culture. “How do we do that? Who is in charge? That is the struggle,” he says.