Now: Here: This July 21, 2006
(scroll right to walk through the exhibition)
PP
New York City
Contradictory Impulses
digital collage
There are too many choices on my mind. I do a little of this, a little of that, and don't choose one thing to complete. Things are going everywhere and nowhere all at once. I sent two pieces for this exhibition and asked Peter to choose for me before I realized my indecisiveness is out of control. Today I want to get out and have lunch with a friend; I am considering three. Then I think, it's hot out so maybe I should wait until the sun goes down. I keep getting hexagram 28, Preponderance of the Great - "Watch out! The roof is about to cave in. If you can renounce all the heavy, soul-searing, mind-expanding revelation you have had and stand physically in the world, by yourself, without them, the attainment of enlightenment will be infinitely closer than it is now." On that note, I must stop looking outside of myself, say goodbye to you, and do nothing - just as soon as I choose between two titles for this collage.
When I thought life had some meaning
Then I thought I had some choice
(I was running blind)
And I made some value judgments
In a self-important voice
(I was outa line)
But then absurdity came over me
And I longed to lose control
(into no mind)
Oh all I ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold-Joni Mitchell, 1991
Pamela Flynn
Freehold, New Jersey
Veteran’s Memorial Park
m ixed media with digital image
I sat on a bench at the Veteran's Memorial Park. Folks were playing ball, having lunch and the children were climbing on the playground equipment. The sun was shining on the old artillery gun that is situated at the entrance to the park.
Sky Pape
Inwood , New York City
Detail of drawing in progress
ink on paper, 77”h x 44”w
I’m being vigilant about protecting blocks and bits of time for things that matter. Studio time, walking time, looking and listening, and trying to keep in touch. It’s the only way I know to strike any kind of balance with all the death and senseless violence and mendacity and greed and apathy that plague our present and poison our future.
Vikki Michalios
Jersey City, New Jersey
unititled
photo of birds nest with painting
What is on my mind right now:
I have been thinking about aproaching some of the many developers in the
Jersey City area about having exhibitions in window spaces of vacant
buildings.
Nick Holliday
Great Barrington, Massachussetts
moticos 1
Bingo card collage
This piece was produced in a BINGO-like game at a conference in which the players used a set of rectangular images (pre-selected by me) as game-pieces, but chose how to play them on their game-cards as the numbers were called out, thus collaborating in the work. As planned, I altered the piece slightly afterward, and embellished it based upon the player's color association to a dream reported by one of the conference members ("blue," in this case) as well as their own dream (something about getting a haircut, in this case, which fit well here, because the portrait detail is of Veronica Lake, an actress from the 40's, I think, famous for her incredible hair.) The whole project was inspired by the life and work of "America's most famous unknown artist," Ray Johnson, which is chronicled in the film "How to Draw a Bunny." Ray Johnson coined the term "moticos" to characterize some of his collages and pioneered "mail art," putting many of his smaller works into envelopes and mailing them to a vast array of people. Thus, most of the "moticos" produced in this project will be ultimately mailed out. (The term "moticos" itself comes from a word chosen randomly from a dictionary, "osmotic," which Johnson then altered.)
Karien Vandekerkhove
Flanders, Belgium
there_is_6
photograph
Anthony Gonzalez
Washington Heights, New York City
Walking Man/Brain Fever
Scotch tape collage and Photoshop
Excerpt from an open letter written by novelist Jane Smiley to William F Buckley and "...all the newly-minted dissenters from Bush's faith-based reality."
"Tyranny is your creation. What we have today is the natural inevitable outcome of ideas and policies you have promoted for the last generation. ...The unregulated free market has operated to produce a government in its own image. In an unregulated free market, for example, cheating is merely another sort of advantage... ...It is no accident that our government is full of cheaters--they learned how to profit from cheating when they were working in corporations that were using bribes, perks, and secret connections to cheat their customers of good products, their neighbors of healthy environmental conditions, their workers of workplace safety and decent paychecks..."
Read this fabulous essay in its entirety at www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/notes-for-converts_b_17662.html
Claire Adas
Lambertville, New Jersey
Street in summer thunderstorm
digital video
On a hot summer day, I love a storm rolling in, when those I love are safe inside.
Karen Greene
Washington Heights, New York City
Water
photographs
I have been trying to deal with the weather and the oppressive humidity and to find something positive about all the water, and not to feel so impossibly weighed down by all the stuff going on in the world so that I cannot function.
Peter Ferko
Washington Heights, New York City
man vs. nature
photomontage
I began work this spring on a series of topical photographs about nature. Especially in New York, one can witness man's dominance over nature. But with hurricanes, climate change, and sheer relentless perseverence, Nature will inevitably have her way--and show us to be just part of her.
This series of photos was the result of taking this theme on a hike through Greenwich Village during the art spark. Afterwards, I thought about the way the plants creep on against the odds at their imperceptible pace and how becoming attentive to them broke up the frantic pace of the city.
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