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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all work ©2004 by artists named
Now: Here: This is funded in part by the Puffin Foundation
Now:
Here: This
March 12, 2004, 16:00 Greenwich Mean Time
Rosa Naparstek, Washington Heights, New York City
It's A Doggeat Dog World
I've had the pieces of this piece, in numerous permutations,
resting on my bookshelf for over a year.
This version took hold last week.The following comments are from: The
Darwin Project:www.thedarwinproject.com
The old '"Darwinian" theory and story of "survival of the fittest" and the celebration of selfishness -- by now fixed in our minds like the programming for robots -- (is) driving our species toward destruction.
The new Darwinian theory and story (is) based on the fact that in The Descent of Man, Darwin wrote only twice about survival of the fittest -- but 95 times about love and 92 times about moral sensitivity
What primarily drives human evolution, Darwin wrote in page after page of the long ignored writings that complete his theory, are "the moral qualities." These, he said, are "advanced, either directly or indirectly, much more through the effects of habit, by our reasoning powers, by instruction, by religion, etc., than through natural selection."
Anya Szykitka, Brooklyn
Untitled
The brick smokestacks just down Manhattan Avenue, only a couple of blocks
from our building. They look like some of the oldest structures in the
neighborhood, with their graspable roundness, almost luscious above and
behind concrete walls, metal security doors.
[Note: Anya has late entries for February 13 and February 20. See the archive]
Scott Plunkett, New York City
untitled
I've been thinking how much I've enjoyed being able to sit in the park and read this week, enjoying the weather. It's been a long winter this year.
Joel Adas, Brooklyn
untitled
Thinking about the transition to living outside more as the weather is just starting to turn towards the warmer. Come spring the windows open and more of the life of the street is let in; dogs barking, tires screeching, loud conversations on the pavement below, the incessant melody of the Koolman icecream truck. Also thinking about the buds on the trees that will be this summer's leaves. Looking forward to more green and blue in my life...
Peter Ferko, Washington Heights, New York City
'Does Bliss Show?' Portrait #11: Going on Vacation
It's one hour before I leave winter behind and cheat my way to the season I like best: summer (achieved in this case by visiting my sister in Key West).
Wendy Newton, Washington Heights, New York City
Un-focusing
Thoughts about multiple perspectives, about how things really do change depending on how you look at them, about how perception is so multi-layered. Ideas about how to look, questions about whether I’m really looking, really seeing multiple perspectives, or just pulling the focus knob, which is already a conditioned way to see. The whole issue of this kind of seeing as applied to myself is becoming more and more tantalizing to me. Not just in art, but in life. I have always perceived my own gaze as very intense, even as a child, and in the past it has made me feel frozen. But I’m noticing a shift here, maybe due to some of the tantric and yogic practices that cultivate presence and spontaneity.
Tim Folzenlogen, Washington Heights, New York City
Contemplating Growth
I scare people.
I scare me.
Scary is good.
Scary is interesting.
Scary is what keeps you facing the right direction – toward the important stuff.
Scary is unforgettable.
Sooner or later, scary takes over.
How else to get rid of it?
Once understood, what was once scary, becomes your best friend.
James Huckenpahler, Washington, D.C.
untitled
Listening to Robert Wyatt
PP, New York City
Irish Bostonians
This my Aunt Honey who married my mother's brother John Kennedy. I was in Boston for another Aunt's funeral which are the new family reunions. Honey wears shamrocks from March 1st to March 17th. Her neckless with pickled 4 leaf clover is not shown. From her porch I could see 5 houses with St. Patrick flags. It's all so corny yet I feel happy hearing the accents of my childhood, they still call me Piaaaaddy. And so sad to see them go, one by one. My favorite line by Honey is her making fun of our acquired Maryland accents ... ''You people and your scallops.'' It's apparently pronounced scollops not scallops.
This Week's Guest Artists (How to join this project)
Claire Adas, Lambertville, New Jersey
Two
11 am is when our store opens, and I was trying to get Malcolm and Steenbeck out for a while and get back to open on time. I was thinking about responsibility, and about these two and the overwhelming affection I have for them and the neediness I feel from them. Sometimes it's hard to get beyond that--it colors every moment and every consideration of who I am. I think about hearing about people's lives from a long view--from afar any thing seems possible. But in my life now, motherhood often feels blinding, it's hard to see around it. Which is okay.
Karen Greene, Washington Heights, New York City
untitled
I followed a beam of sunlight and found this lurking in the corner of the living room, bound and constrained by light and shadow.
Anthony Gonzalez, Washington Heights, New York City
Aorta Man
Today the media is full of terror and carnage - the pain on that train in Spain. What can one say about such an event? It saddens me, and makes me fearful and anxious.
I have so enjoyed participating in "Now: Here: This." However, I am not nearly so able with words as I am with pictures. The requirements of this project dictate that I accompany my image with a few words about what is currently the most important thing on my mind. I have so much trouble satisfying this requirement. It would be so much easier if I could accompany each weeks submission with a short improvised dance.
Renee Tamara Watabe, Verona, New Jersey
Revisiting Rebirth of Passion
When I did this pastel sketch I felt intensely driven to portray this
image and the colors, which originally included all colors of the spectrum,
with emphasis on purple and yellow, and shades of green in the upward
turning leaf. It felt like a bursting process, the drawing itself,
I couldn't sit still; couldn't sleep until it was done. It began
as an abstract painting which I executed with very energetic strokes,
and then I stood back and saw these images in the shapes and colors. So
I did this pastel and immediately felt better. My girlfriend at work took
one look and said, "It looks like a female crucifixion scene."
Okay, maybe an obvious comparison, but it wasn't my conscious intent.
I thought it interesting to see the parallels between the strong feelings
I needed to express, the word Passion, itself, the association with the
Passion of Christ, the feeling of One's Own Power, how religious dogma
can easily channel that power away.....This was done two years ago, in
the wee hours of the morning, but continues to be on my mind today, both
as a theme in life, and as a work to further develop artistically.
We all have truth to share, and even if we hide from it, we are ultimately found.
Comments on Last Week's Now:Here:This
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From Joel:
I was very drawn to the photographs included this week [March 5]. Renee Watabe's photograph was beautiful; the warm browns and sienas with a hit of electric blue in the corner, I've been thinking about the beauty of the blue/brown combo in general and her photograph framed it in a whole new way for me. Also, Karen Greene's photo of a tree up close...Are there any better abstractions than what can be found in nature? I loved Wendy's photo of the boiling water and her comments about change. We've been going thru alot of change in our environment so I really related to seeing familiar things in a new way. Now Tim, I have to speak directly to you since you've been wanting the interaction/commentary. I love your paintings. They look lush, I love the light in them, the thick paint on a small scale. I think of Thiebaud or even Monet for that matter. But to me they are straight forward. Why a title like"understanding" when you are painting the side of a building with light on it? Somehow, it seems to me you are asking more for and from your work than it needs. It is beautiful as is, no need to put more on it. And in people's reactions to it or lack thereof, I think it is hard for painting, any painting, to grab people visually in this overly saturated visual culture we live in, especially here in the city and on the web. I think from looking at the images of yours that I've seen on the screen that the paintings would be that much more appealing in person, and that is one of the strongpoints of painting, its physicality, its intimacy as an actual hand made object existing in the world.
From Renee:
Regarding Bliss #10
I think we should extend the project just to see how many more ways of experiencing and showing Bliss Peter can come up with.Regarding Jacie's Google Search
I once google searched for myself on the internet, too. A number of my "successful" male friends, you can google search for them and come up with thousands of hits that really ARE them! Me, I found a number of Renees but none of them were actually me. The most interesting one that night was Renee Reyes the Transgender Webmistress of Atlanta, (or something like that). And I actually corresponded with her/him two or three times. Her website was rather thoughtful and sensitive, and, in some places, heartwrenching.Jacie's google search and comments about wanting to go beyond yourself, make me want to say that I think the more intimate you are with yourself, the closer you are to every single other person in this universe. I am fascinating as you are fascinating as he is fascinating as she is fascinating. When it is all about You, it is all about Me, too.
From Peter regarding Tim's reply to my comment...
I find it interesting that you say your painting "provides the platform for you to get others to consider your thought." I would expand on Joel's comment to you this week by saying: Your painting is your thought, and others are blown away by it. It's the hand of god reaching down and giving us something worth experiencing. That transforms the world.
The rest is just conversation.
From Peter about the FUTURE OF Now: Here: This
Last week, I asked for votes about whether Now: Here: This should continue beyond the April 2 end date. I received a few key votes this week to add to the comments people made to me previously (please vote if you haven't). I want to address some of the vote comments.
First, the reason I set a short time frame on the project was because a similar project I participated in (with James, Jason, and others) petered out unceremoniously (albeit after 3 years) and I wanted to avoid that. Perhaps, though, this project is not yet at the end of its vitality and I am premature in ending it on April 2.
There have been comments about the arbitrariness of the 16:00 GMT time element and also about how it keeps people from participating. I added that component because I believed there was a value to focusing psychic energy on Artists Unite and believed this was a way to do that and to create an interesting buzz point, i.e., conceptual component, to the project. Many participants have skirted the time component, so perhaps it is unimportant; however some participants have found that the time component pushes them in a unique way that moves them outside their normal work or encourages them to act.
Finally, my own comment, which has been echoed or grappled with by numerous people, is about this comment section. Many contributors have not used it. Many have even found it difficult to get verbal at all (see Anthony's piece this week.) This lack of use has frustrated others. Vesna Pavlovic suggested this comment section because of her project, which is basically "all comment all the time" (see the February 13 comment section in the archive). I'm inclined to dump this section in any follow on and let the work and "most important thing" stand on its own (see James' comment last week).
Several people have commented that it would be satisfying to have this wrap up as planned so that what follows could start as a new entity and the old could end as its own entity. I like that idea a lot and think that's how we'll proceed. I will put instructions for the new project up before April 2 so anyone who wants to participate will know how. Stay posted...
From Tim
My experience is that everyone is afraid. Everyone is insecure. There is so much shame and blame out there. I think that most people, underneath everything - in one way or another - I think they feel kind of awful about themselves.
So we put up all these facades.
One is that we are always busy. We are always so very, very busy. We are way too busy to deeply engage other people. We think about this, all the time. We spend oceans of time, billions more time thinking about this, than we do actually engaging people in any kind of meaningful way.
Another is that we don’t know what to say. This is completely ridiculous. Think of a person, any person in your life – and I’ll bet you know exactly what you’d most like to say to that person. You’ve probably been thinking about it forever. It’s probably the first thought that comes to mind whenever you think of that person.
Here’s another facade: The opportunity never arises. “If only we lived next door to each other.” The circumstances have to be perfect. The other has to fit elusive criteria that seemingly can never be cornered.
Then, of course, we have all the prejudices: class, neighborhood, racial, position, sexual, age, religious, interests etc.
We surround ourselves with people who think and act just like us – only we still feel alone.
Maybe we gravitate to loud themes, usually about blame, so as to focus attention elsewhere.
Or maybe we go for soft and subtle. Try to keep it light – so as not to have to have too much to think about. Money. Labels.
It’s all because we feel so insecure - which of course we do - because we never express the truth of our lives, in any kind of meaningful way to others.
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Thank you, artists, commenters and viewers, for participating in Now: Here: This. -Peter Ferko
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all work ©2004 by artists named