Now: 16:00 Greenwich Mean Time every Friday.
Here: A community of artists in Washington Heights / Inwood and the world meeting in this online gallery.
This: A piece of art created Now and sharing the most important thing on our minds.
Scroll down to view the exhibit below. Thank you for participating in and viewing Now: Here: This.--Peter Ferko, Project Director
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Now: Here: This is funded in part by the Puffin Foundation
Now:
Here: This
January 30, 2004, 16:00 Greenwich Mean Time
Petr Shvetsov, St. Petersburg, Russia
Drawing
What is on my mind?
There is darkness in my mind.
Allah is great and very kind.
Tim Folzenlogen, Washington Heights, New York City
Shadow (4"x6" oil on paper)
For the last three years, I’ve been working small, and taking a lot of time with each piece. I’ll go into them seven, eight, sometimes a dozen times. A painting that is 10" x 15", might take me three weeks to complete.
During this same period time, I was doing a lot of writing, and putting my website together. My website is like a huge ship: inside and outside, thoughts and images.
The paintings I created during this time, are the outward reflection of all of that invested energy. They have a lot to say, and it takes a lot of contemplation in order to hear that.
But people have no time for contemplation, and my telling them that they need to would often be misinterpreted, and get me labeled as being arrogant and egotistical. It is often that way when talking about huge things in short conversations.
So I thought to do paintings that are, in themselves, short conversations: small and fast, one-day paintings on paper. I’m thinking to do hundreds of them and spread them out to many galleries both in and outside of NYC.
Let the people come upon my website on their own, when and if their interest in me takes root.
This is the eleventh of this series.
James Huckenpahler, Washington, D.C.
Untitled
Thinking about:
1
treacherous slopes
2
practical abstraction
3
the athelete that I am not
4
Germania by Tacitus?
5
deep thief
Piero Ribelli, New York City
Untitled
Today I have been thinking about God.
and religion.
Nusrath Fateh Ali Khan is playing on my stereo.
I have decided that I don't like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
the little part of me that kind of likes the tunes, is loosing to the
big
part of me that is sick of hearing all this stuff about how great Allah
is...
Peter Ferko, Washington Heights, New York City
'Does Bliss Show?' Portrait #5: Water
The most important thing on my mind is washing away time for just a little while...
Wendy Newton, Washington Heights, New York City
In the Waiting Room
11:15 Appointment for a Baseline Mammogram
We all have on pink gowns that tie in front. Instant camaraderie. Superficial
sameness. Old, young, rich, poor, Chinese, white, Hispanic. We all have
breasts, and we’re all here to have them inspected. But you can
see personality showing in the shoes, in the posture, in the haircut,
in the choice of magazine. Me: scuffed black clogs; shoulders rounding
over my moving pen; probably wrinkling my brow. Someone might think I’m
very serious, even worried. But I’m not. I don’t really mind
having my body inspected, unless it’s rudely done. Visual observation
and abstract thinking help to shield me from the potential intensity of
feeling (anxiety, fear, even what I pick up from the others), and writing
helps me to center, to focus, to sink into the reality of the situation.
The breasts cover the heart center. Nurturance (life) flows from there.
Jacie Lee Almira, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City
Purple & Pink
In a recent New York Times article, someone said about the importance of artists, "We should cherish the people who can tell us who we are, where we come from, and where we hope to go." After reading this I was reassured--feeling that it was an affirmation of my choice to create. Also, I've always believed that an artwork is complete only when it is viewed by others. Others who can relate to the issues embedded in the work or others who can't (both of which is all right, I guess). But like the question of the sound a falling tree makes in the woods, if art isn't shared is it still art? I'm leaning towards no.
Scott J. Plunkett, New York City
Untitled
The most important thing on my mind is trying to figure out what's on my mind, and it is freezing me up a little bit. The last couple weeks, all I think about is either mundane, routine stuff, like did the dog get his pills this morning? Or I feel like I'm being didactic. So this week, rather than writing first, I started working on the piece first. I take a lot of photographs, and I started looking for connections between images I recently shot, or have been interested in lately. This digital collage really snapped together for me.
Laura Traverso, Washington, D.C.
Untitled
i have a 5th grade class i teach in about 10 minutes. they do a very
intense study of China throughout the whole year. so far we have been
practicing calligraphy, landscape painting, value studies of Buddha, made
individual rice bowls and teacups, and made our own Xi'an tomb soldiers,
smaller scale of course! so much of this i didn't learn until i was in
college.
seems like an awful lot when i write it down.
the project today consists of taking their chinese given names and stylizing them so they fit into a certain format, carving them into an aluminum stamp and making prints with them. it will be a tedious explanation. first i have to figure out for myself how i would go about doing this, and then simplify the process for 5th grade minds, some who need the directions repeated many times. this has been a challenge every time.
Rosa Naparstek, Washington Heights, New York City
Homage
Nothing on my mind, but sadness. Wanting change, transformation, evolution, a new world and what's this piece got to do with anything? In the back, nestled in the hollow of each breast, two plastic laughing faces deride all attempt at meaning and I allow myself not to know.
PP, New York City
The 11 O'clock Sun On Thought Bubbles
Note to self: (on focusing on getting a job.) Will: You are always trying to direct it this way or that way; and this is what we usually call "will" But when we are directing and controlling ourselves, we are stopping our spontaneity. We are not able to trust, and thus are blocking our true will. True will is actually nothing but complete surrender to what is experienced in this moment. From the perspective of the adult, true will is complete surrender of what is usually called "will," and so is functionally the opposite. True will does not involve surrender to another person, but to yourself, to life, to your experience, to the truth of now. The moment we say "no" to our experience, we are using false will. Discontent, pain, and conflict are not part of our natural state. When you see and release what is false, it goes away. This is the discharge, the regulation. And what remains is what is real. ~A.H. Almaas
Anya Szykitka, Brooklyn
Kitchen
I was going to go out and photograph, but am caught by an interaction with Joel in the kitchen that keeps me in and shifts me back. I am thinking about our life, where were are going, our many possessions (which we are moving around so the landlord can paint). With Joel sitting quietly, looking at the windows, I can no longer go out and take pictures as I had intended. That moment is over, replaced by something completely different and unexpected.
This Week's Guest Artists (How to join this project)
Olga & Alexander Florensky, St. Petersburg, Russia
Untitled
Renee Tamara Watabe, Verona, New Jersey
Untitled
Two dozen years ago, I took this photo of my fifty something
year old Mommy. She was very mysterious to me then, going through some
dark years.
Three babies of my own later, upon viewing Now:Here:This, I got very excited
about revisiting that photo shoot, thinking it would be like making love
again, after all those years of abstinence from "creative "
photography. I started feeling hot. TBut the reality of that friday morning
at eleven was more like being a fumbling and nervous virgin. The camera
felt so foreign in my hands, I was shooting blind, as regards to the light;
what a feeling of disconnect.
But my feet got wet and it gave me a reference point. It pleases me that
my Mom looks more "present'" in the new photos. All I really
wanted was to catch a little of her essence , anyway.
Connecting with my enigmatic Mother was my Most Important Thing that morning.
Anthony Gonzalez, Washington Heights, New York City
My Funny Valentine
These two, although no longer co-joined, still share everything. As an
ex-Catholic, I often hear this annoying little voice scold, "What
an egomaniac!" whenever I share in a public forum something I have
created.
Only lately have I come to realize that the little scolding voice belongs
to the devil--which makes it only slightly less annoying.
Comments on Last Week's Now:Here:This
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From Renee:
Peter's Bliss Photo [#4]
This photo has a stillness that I like, and a textural, painterly quality to it.
I like the blur of the hands, the translucent effect makes me feel like I am looking at Peter's spirit, rather than just at his physical self.
And of course , the title makes me wonder about bliss.
Is it the ultimate goal or just one flavor of life which we couldn;t really taste without all the other flavors stirred in?
Is Peter, pictured here, in a state of Bliss?
If I assume his posture, will I feel it , too?Regarding Tim and Tree
growth....understanding.....insight.....union.....bliss ( I like this word, Peter )... and love.
I seem to remember reading somewhere, the deeper and broader the roots of a tree, the higher and wider the branches are able to grow; the more symmetry within the roots, pushing downward, the more symmetry in the branches reaching upwards.
From Tim:
Like much of what I see in galleries, I feel like I understand what Dominik is saying, just I don't understand why. It's like being esoteric, to the point of being absurd. Why go though all that trouble to say next to nothing?
I've driven through almost every town and city in New Mexico, most of them many times. I love that state.
Aineki's words sing from the page.
I didn't know Peter was a yoga guy.
I wish I could be a lesbian.
From Peter:
It is interesting to see the texture of drawing, a supremely analog action, converted into the digital medium of this exhibit format. There is a challenge in getting the scan of a one-of-a-kind object to look like the original--to get the feel of the paper, the pencil color, the contrast. But even with the limitation of the scan, the drawings rest in such sharp contrast to the digital images and photograpy in the exhibit. I am really appreciating the rhythmic quality that they add. Like a roomful of slick neon-lit faces interupted by the occasional country-girl smile.
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Thank you, artists, commenters and viewers, for participating in Now: Here: This. -Peter Ferko
How to join this project | About the artists | Archived weeks
all work ©2004 by artists named