Now: Here: This December 2, 2005
(scroll right to walk through the exhibition)
Harold Wallin
Washington Heights, New York City
untitiled
photograph
I've been thinking about the Stoics and how stoicism is the proper philosophy for artists. It seems important to learn the ability to accept our situation as artists for what it is, not struggling against society, or history, or values. Not allowing oneself to be frustrated by wishes that are in conflict with that reality. And I've been thinking of an art based on this knowledge of seeing things for what they are, where a cup is not a cup, it is just what it is, the truth.
Karien Vandekerkhove
Flanders, Belgium
there_is_1
photograph
“... nothing that is not there and the nothing that is…” (from “the snow man”, Wallace Stevens – 1921)
PP
New York City
Flatbed Frill
digital collage
I went to the Van Gogh drawing show at the Met with a tour guide friend. We enjoyed his work and concentrating on one person. The frilly elements of his work impressed me and I wanted to do a “collaboration” with him. I isolated part of a drawing and spent hours trying to work with it, but we were not in synch. I also had in mind a Rauschenberg that I had looked at for only a few minutes… seems his essence bubbled-up and came out my keyboard and mouse.
Joel Adas
Brooklyn, New York
Reflection of a Bridge (the Delaware Canal)
pencil on paper, 5.5 x 9.5 inches
Most important thing on my mind: Art that has a positive impact. I saw the Van Gogh/Drawings show and felt an amazing sense of freedom in the work. It made me think and feel that the act of making/exhibiting art is an act of hope and afirmation. It can say “This is what I saw, this is what touched something in me, and now it can touch something in you too.”
Miriam Leuchter
New York City
Double Portrait
photo diptych, 18x12 inches
Photography is the act of stopping time. In making (or looking at) a photo, you get the sense that there is nothing other than this; there is nowhere other than here; the time is always now.
Peter Ferko
Washington Heights, New York City
improv
photograph, 3.75 x 5 inches
The most important thing on my mind right now is pulling a piece of work
out of nowhere. It stops all other thoughts. I had some ideas—what
were they?…shit, that won’t work…I don't have time for
this now…wait,
[inhale] that's cool…ooh, or I could try…okay good, I’d
better get back [exhale]
…maybe I could look at that view idea again…hey, check out
the blinds [time…pauses…now…this…here it is]
But once the “deed is done” the thoughts flood back: what the hell am I going to do now, why am I here, and how can my work come down to this stolen moment?
Misha Donstov
New York City
Sniper of love
acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
Here will become there, now will become then, this will grow into that,
then it will grow old and crumble into dust. I will collect the dust into
moldy jars and will put them on a shelf. I will write the labels, I will
catalogue and classify.
There is only one now, but when I set out to catch it, it becomes then.
Situated between receding past and unknown future, now is a mystery. Now
is the mystery.
There is too much of this in this now.
Now here is this, an infinite number of presentations in an infinitely
small period of time. At any given point in time space has no edge and
no center. There is no edge, I don't fall off.
Space is humorous. There is the humor that springs from nowhere, pointing
out nothing. Space is the essence of humor.
Space is love-able. Love soaks space through and through, showing itself
to itself, bubbling and bubbling, talking always, but saying nothing.
Sniper of love is already in position, waiting for your arrival. Here
you go. There you are. Bull's eye!
Theresa Murphy
Paris, France
storybook
digital jpeg
as i looked at the feet of my stepmother
sound asleep on the couch
afternoon spreading across the desert
i saw tattered stockings
but i really saw a storybook
a web of voyages - inner/outer
traces, labyrinths, hieroglyphs...
the worn wealth of breath reposing
life, plain and simple.
anaximander & Malcolm Delargy
Berlin and London
NUDEs - in cold print
digital print
sometimes it seems as if the dark side magnetized me. however beauty and friendly the model i invited seems to be, i cant stop working before i don’t teased out her darkest secret. and i am suffering like a dog (german saying) when the model refuses the entry in her secret world.
in the same rigorousity my collaborations partner malcolm delargy and i are searching for the beauty of bodies which fascination isn’t obvious. but when we found it, we love to dive deep into this beauty and work with it as far as it leads us.
Sky Pape
Inwood, New York City
Buddha Vista
digital photograph
On my mind now: I first saw a certain painter's work in a show in New Orleans last century, and this week I hung one of his paintings on my wall. I forget about it, and then something makes me turn my head, and there it is again. I can't say how happy it makes me to look at it over and over, whenever I like! Someone I know thinks it's the strangest thing, nuts, for an artist to buy other artists' work. I can't imagine a more natural impulse. Creative nourishment comes in many forms, and isn't it wonderful when there's more than one beneficiary?
Nick Holliday
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
untitled
collage, 5.5 x 7 inches
I've been thinking about the art I like to look at and how that relates to the art which I make. The connection is not especially clear.
Stephen Beveridge
Washington Heights, New York City and Hemet, California
Oor Wullie coast to coast
digital image
I'm leaving New York again tommorrow and will miss the energy and pace of my life here. My west coast life has in the past been a time of renewal and charging the batteries. I haven't been very creative there. This last few months has been a whirlwind of creative energy and as usual I hope to continue in California but I hope I can be accepting of whatever happens and not fret so much about low productivity and boredom.
Rosa Naparstek
Washington Heights, New York City
I Love You
mixed media
...having become dinosaurs
possibly at the end of our time in time
grown too big and heavy on the earth
filled with empty selves locked in
unbearable pain denied...can we
begin at the beginning beyond belief
open to communicate essential form?
Pamela Flynn
Freehold, New Jersey
around and around #1
Mixed media with digital image
Around and around we go and where we will stop no one knows.
Karen Greene
Washington Heights, New York City
untitled
photograph
My mother had a bad fall and is now in a nursing home and most days she
does not know who I am. I have been trying to find my mother. I brought
her some yarn and needles. She was always an ardent knitter and when I
cast on for her, she began to knit and her hands remembered. She only
does it when I am there, but a piece of her remains.
Renee Watabe
Verona, New Jersey
untitled
digital photograph
Today at the official time of the Art Spark, the most important thing
on my mind was Death.
Two lives ended today in the Emergency Room, one very young and one very
old. The death of the young is especially hard to take.
Philosophically, I think of death as a bridge or a transition, not as an end. On a nitty gritty level, all of us there agreed that this was a day we could sure use a stiff drink or a cigarette. All the more frustrating since none of us drink or smoke.
As an alternative means of comfort, I ate a Hot Fudge Sundae for lunch and was surprised and glad to find that it seemed to get me through the remainder of the day.
Anthony Gonzalez
Washington Heights, New York City
untitled
Photoshop collage
I am disappointed in Hillary Clinton for co-sponsoring a law that would ban desecration of the American flag. It makes me want to go right out and desecrate an American flag on principle, as an expression of love for this country and respect for the constitution.
Wendy Newton
Washington Heights, New York City
untitled
digital photo
I’m so reluctant to create images these days, whether with words or pictures. I’m interested in the fullness of a moment, but I often feel like it evaporates during the act of creating a “record” of it. There was so much in this discovered image for me—a certain poetic quality, a hint of the things we project and hide, or don’t know we project. But...
Monika Weiss
New York City
Phlegethon – Milczenie
photograph of performance
Drawing is like muted speach and like writing. It's quiet, humble. I touch the pages, marking the paper, which cracks and breaks. With my eyes closed, I lie on editions od Goethe, Schiller, Kafka, Celan, Mann, and others, outlining my body with charcoal lines. I lie in German languague which I don't speak. The smell coming from the open books, all printed before the war, is strong. There is silence in the room, Milczenie. Outside the room, there is a layer of colorful noise covering all the horrors, burnings, killings, past and current, Phlegethon, River of Fire. Inside, here, I want silence. Open, inside me, inside you, a space for listening.
Tim Folzenlogen
Washington Heights, New York City
untitled comic strip
pencil drawings
click here to read the strip
(This is a serial strip that continues from previous weeks)
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