Now: Here: This March 18, 2005
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PP
New York City
It’s Just As Natural As The Weather
digital collage
As much as I don’t like the cold winter, I get use to it and end-up feeling comfortable with the illusionary safety of being small—insulated with clothing, the protection of walls, and being virtual in communication. With spring comes possible risky visibility and definite expansion. But it’s one layer at time. Outside I’m still wearing my scarf; I think I’ll miss it, but when the time comes that I don’t need it, I won’t. Yippee. And so the pattern goes.
Anya Szykitka
Brooklyn
untitled
Kodachrome
I’m thinking about: trying to make it interesting, trying to give it some meaning. But it’s raw, straightforward...blunt, even. It is what it is, like so many things. Yet the deeper meaning is there, it’s just that with words, sometimes only poetry will work, and there’s no time for poetry now.
Harold Wallin
Washington Heights, New York City
untitled
digital photograph
I’ve been thinking about this art spark all week and how glad I am to have been invited. Each day at 11 I’ve turned my mind to the upcoming project. Most of the time I’ve been thinking of how I’ll have to make something and then get that ‘me, all alone’ feeling that artists are heir to. Now that the moment is here, I find I’m not thinking of myself alone but of all of you others who are also making something now. Also, I am thinking of this moment I am drawing this image out of, and I’m thinking of the image itself. I feel a surprise to realize that at the moment of making how little my thoughts turn to myself. That seems to be the most important thought I have right now.
Renee Watabe
Verona, New Jersey
Liberation
digital photographs
Symbolic gestures hold power.
Maybe that is all that is needed. I thought of adding something like, “Symbolic gestures hold power. How many women are emerging , worldwide?”
Or talk about the burkas, or other types of things that hide and insulate a woman. But then I thought it makes it too enclosed . I would like a man to be able to look at the photos and not feel excluded, but rather , feel included. Men are insulated and hidden , too.
Maybe it is enough to allude to the power inherent in conscious, intentional gestures, and then each viewer can go in his or her own personal , private direction with it.
Claire Adas
Lambertville, New Jersey
untitled
video stills
I’ve been thinking a lot about time passing. I shot this super-8 film while I was pregnant; 2 1/2 years later I videotaped my son watching it. Watching him watch something I had seen before he was born seemed very beautiful to me. The whole notion of stills, video stills of film stills, and the act of choosing which moment to save, felt like playing with time and memory.
Joel Adas
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
The Blue Sign
pencil on paper
I am thinking about the role of magic in art. I just picked up a catlogue
of Peter Doig’s work that a friend had bought for me a few years
ago. The paintings were big, strange, dreamy and beautiful. I thought
“this is what painting can do!” It can occupy a subjective
space somewhere between film, photography, drawing, and advertising; all
the other visual mediums that it competes with for a viewer’s attention.
In some ways painting is the quiet cousin standing quietly but captivatingly
in the corner. It works its magic slowly over time. A half-finished Manet
landscape at the Met is as alive and beautiful as the day when Manet completed
it.
Stephen Beveridge
Washington Heights, New York City
excelsis deo
electrical energy transformed into bits then translated and printed
What I was thinking: I was thinking about not thinking. I was observing thought and refusing to catch the ball so I don’t remember what the thoughts were. If I were to guess I’d say I was thinking about eating, sex, or sleeping.
Peter Ferko
Washington Heights, New York City
self-portrait (Big Game Hunter)
Digital photograph
I have become obsessed with the sun’s graffiti. As I walk through the city during the hours when the multi-faceted god is at his lowest angles, the reflections from windows make fleeting tags on walls and walks. For several years now I’ve been hunting these marks, which I have dubbed “lightow” (as opposed to shadow). Today I hung a few of them on my studio wall and posed for a portrait with my bounty.
Peggy Braun
Lennox, Massachusetts
untitled
photograph
At 11 yesterday I was missing Oaxaca. We just came back Monday nite. I miss the magic of turning a corner and finding a group singing or dancing. It makes me realize how isolated we are here--no central place to hang out and just create an event because you feel like it or because there is something to celebrate. They are always celebrating something in Mexico. And just look at this door, ruined and beautiful. And now I am back in my very nice house, on my very nice block, in my very nice town, but when I go to the supermarket, no one will be singing. How sad.
Tim Folzenlogen
Washington Heights, New York City
Secret of The Universe
digital photograph
Hello. My name is Tim Folzenlogen.
I’m a saint / prophet / visionary artist.
I’ll tell you one of the secrets of the universe. This is absolutely
true. It will work every time.
Absolutely nothing will stop honesty and sincerity.
You know who you are, right? Even if you are all fucked-up, you know how
you got there. You make perfect sense to you.
With your goal in mind, you will have inspirations. They will probably
be your first thought, whenever you consider your goal. You have probably
been thinking about them forever.
Express them, honestly and sincerely.
I mean, if there be a God – how could even God expect you to do
better than that? You think what you think. Should you lie?
Here is how you can do even better. It’s the second step.
DEEPLY consider everything that does and does not come back. Consider
it as deeply as you want to be considered. Maybe you are wrong. Always
assume that you are wrong. Expect to be corrected.
If so, learn the lesson, and move forward – but the vast majority
of the time (everyone is a lot smarter than they know) you will be right.
The other will simply step aside, and let you advance.
Always consider what does and does not come back, honestly and sincerely,
and then act on your next inspiration. You will ALWAYS get a next inspiration,
and you will ALWAYS know that this is what you should do.
Goals are, and always will be, in the future. Once achieving any of them,
there will be
others. Ultimately, they are little more than mile markers.
What is most important is your next step, and it will always be perfect
for you, taking every single thing that you are into consideration.
You will always get what you need, to take that next step.
Anthony Gonzalez
Washington Heights, New York City
In the beginning was the Word
Scanned graphite pencil drawing and Photoshop collage
God spends most of each day at a small chalkboard that hangs on the wall by a mirror and a clock. The chalkboard was sponged clean the night before. At the top He has written with chalk in simple unadorned letters the day of the week, the month, and the year. He watches the clock. Starting at precisely 8:59 A.M. He takes his white chalk in hand and carefully writes out the time “9:00 A.M.” He will write each number and letter with unhurried, deliberate strokes, taking the entire minute to complete the task. Sometimes He uses his left hand, sometime his right – ambidexterity being only one of the advantages of omnipotence. When the clock indicates 9:00 A.M. He erases what he just wrote and with the same methodical hand fills the next minute writing ” 9:01 A.M.” Periodically He glances at his reflection in the mirror. He continues in this manner, usually without interruption until noon, at which time He stops to sponge the slate clean, have a sandwich, and use the toilet. At twelve thirty He begins again. At 3:00 O’clock He rests for ten minutes. At 3:10 He resumes until 5:00. Each evening, the slate gets washed thoroughly, then dried with a chamois. How He spends the rest of His evening is a mystery. The last thing he does before turning in is to write the day of the week, the month, and the year that correspond to the day to follow.
Jayme McLellan
Washington, D.C.
untitled
photograph
the most important thing on my mind is two fold 1) the genocide happening
in darfur and 2) the root causes of such conflicts and power of the individual
to do something.
i’ve been thinking long and hard about conflict and heroism and
what it means to stand up as a leader in the face of great obstacles,
hypocrisies, and disappointment. i’ve met a few real heroes lately
who have dedicated their lives to causes that seem hopeless yet without
their dedication, the important strides made might not have been. and
these small strides make sure people get to live. and we all have a right
to that.
i’m also thinking about sovereignty and the sovereignty of nations
being more important than the sanctity of human life such as with politicians
dragging their feet in the case of Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia, and even with
the Holocaust. And then, at the same time, I’m thinking about D.C.,
my hometown, and how much I love the U.S. and feel privileged to live
here. The tributes we give to heroes, like monuments, shrines, etc. that
will outlive us… this history written by others, it’s not
the real history of this country.
i guess i’m thinking about some big issues.
Vikki Michalios
Jersey City, New Jersey
Garden
oil on panel
March, 2005
There are so many important things on my mind right now that I find it difficult to pick just one. As a mother, a wife, a businessperson, and an artist, there are so many important things on my mind right now and always. To say just one, I guess it would be to find peace for a few minutes each day.
Theresa Murphy
Paris, France
Shadow Pattern
mixed media
I’m thinking of wholeness
A desire for wholeness…a work of
fragments.
Rosa Naparstek
Washington Heights, New York City
Homage To The End of Mother’s Troublesome Uppers
installation and collage
Sala Naparstek Born August 12, 1918
Died February 20, 2005
Loved to Sing and Dance
Wear Beaded Blouses and Gold Lame.
Tormented by the Century’s Crime
Ill Fitting Uppers and Childless Children:
Remembered for Keeping Us Alive.
Sky Pape
Inwood, New York City
Trio
mixed media
March, 2005
Society tends to diminish our individualism, reducing us to numbers, ratings, choice demographic groups. At the same time, advertising exhorts us to express our individuality through consumerism (Buy more! Indulge your whims!). Even in the age of cloning, being truly individual seems more inevitable than important. This is the month when my sister Paula was born and died. An individual gone forever, having made that solitary journey. I think about how we were made of the same stuff, how alike and how different we were, and how painfully I still and always will miss her.
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