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
how to join this project | about the artists | archived weeks
all work ©2004 by artists named
Now: Here: This is funded in part by the Puffin Foundation
Now:Here:This ends, Virtual:Comunidad begins...
April 2 is the last date artists participating in Now:Here:This are creating work. The exhibit of this work will be April 9. (Do not submit work after April 7 for Now:Here:This.) The archive of Now:Here:This will remain in Artists Unite's Online Gallery.
A follow-on project, entitled Virtual:Comunidad will begin on May 1. Anyone interested in participating should look at the introduction and instructions by clicking here.
Thank you for participating and enjoy the exhibit below,
-Peter Ferko, Project Director
Now:
Here: This
March 26, 2004, 16:00 Greenwich Mean Time
Rosa Naparstek, Washington Heights, New York City
View From My Studio: Graffiti
What's On My Mind Right Now:
The separation of church and state...
The fact that the United States is the only country
to have been founded on a secular basis
That 40 Million Americans are illiterate
That 30 Million Americans consider themselves
Evangelical Christians
That literacy is defined as being able to
read a menu and traffic signs
That when horrified about the Taliban remember
a woman is raped in this country every minute
and men are in control of her reproductive rights.
When I criticize myself for not being focused,
Aldous Huxley's following quote comes to mind:
"Patriotism is not enough. But neither is anything else.
Science is not enough, religion is not enough, politics,
and economics are not enough, nor is love,
nor is duty, nor is action, however disinterested,
nor however sublime, is contemplation.
Nothing short of everything will really do."
PP, New York City
A Fifth Floor in Midtown
Friday I was working freelance at a publishing house. It was like a miniature universe that I dropped-in on. It was well ordered, creative, and even fun. I got attached to a couple people over the week. Okay, maybe I don't get out much.
Wendy Newton, Washington Heights, New York City
Remedies
I didn’t write anything on Friday. I was too sick, too exhausted from, preoccupied by, lost in the darkness of a really nasty sore throat virus (I’m not trying to be dramatic). So I’m writing now as I make my submission, and now I can’t quite remember how bad I felt. It’s a great design feature of the human brain, to be able to forget like that. I guess if you can forget the pain it makes it easier to move on, establish health, resume life. Pain leaves its mark though. On your psyche, on your body. The patterns of contraction against it remain even after the pain has gone. It’s just really fucking (excuse me) hard to remain relaxed when you’re in pain, and not being relaxed doesn’t help either. And the remedies don’t really help. But ah, the relief is so sweet when it comes.
Laura Traverso, Washington, D.C.
untitled
on my mind is the way i organize my space or lack thereof. and the areas that i cannot seem to rearrange because of an odd attatchment to where things were placed initially.
Anya Szykitka, Brooklyn
Worn New York #5
The most important thing on my mind: how lovely it is to have a warm day to walk around the city and take photographs.
Tim Folzenlogen, Washington Heights, New York City
You and Me - Mobile Studio
There are these kids who hang out on a street in my neighborhood.
They are always there. Maybe they belong to a gang. Maybe
they sell pot. I don’t really know. Just they are always there.
One day the one kid did the intimidation thing to me. “Who are you
looking at?” I think he had to prove something to the other kids.
I used the opportunity to engage him and the other kids.
I brought my daughter by. I introduced her to them - told them that she
is a violinist.
I told them that I was an artist. I gave them catalogues and website cards. I invited them all to my studio, which is only a block away.
I told them I wanted to start breaking down the wall between Dominican kids and white guy. I told them I thought it would be cool to get to know each other as human beings.
I told them I had a good idea for a neighborhood art project. I told them I had a mobile studio – and that I wanted to do partial portraits of them, right there, on the sidewalk.
I’ll bet they would have loved it.
I’ll bet crowds of people would have gathered around and watched us. People in this neighborhood never get to see or experience anything like that.
I told them we could do a show of the finished series in a gallery once completed. I told them that I would give them 10% of the sale price if the piece sold – and that if I was a famous artist by then (which I thought to be a strong possibility) that might be a lot of money.
Not one of them ever came to my studio.
They are all seemingly way too busy to sit for me for a painting. They tell me this, even though all they do is hang out on the sidewalk all day every day.
They’d much rather go on thinking that Tim (white
guy) is “this” and they are something completely different.
They’d much rather go on thinking of white people as being assholes.
They like their concepts.
They don’t want to consider anything beyond that – even if it looks like something better.
This is my experience with everyone.
Scott Plunkett, New York City
Up/Down
I decided to try out a photography idea I have been tossing around. Up/Down. I took one photograph straight up in the air, which turns out to be mostly trees in the city, and another down at the ground, I thought I would then try and morph the two photos together, and see what came out of it. Mostly it was uninteresting, and the striped trees picture is more “up/playing around with photoshop.” They don’t have much to say, but they’re pretty. I couldn’t decide, so I enclosed two. They are almost up to par, maybe a subject would help...
Joel Adas, Brooklyn
untitled
I was thinking about being here in this familiar apartment, sitting still and drawing it for an hour. The fish on the radiator is actually drawn in ink on a piece of driftwood and dates back to a trip out to Washington state to see Anya's mom in 1993, shortly after our wedding. It got me thinking about what a different person I was back then, and also about travel in general. Where are we going this summer? Where am I going? There's alot of uncertainty there but I do know that I need to get on some sort of boat and fish and draw and sit in the sun.
Peter Ferko, Washington Heights, New York City
'Does Bliss Show?' Data Analysis
The most important thing on my mind is obsessive mind, obsessive behavior, obsessive lifestyle. I hate ranting about "them"--I used to love it, but it's a pointless road to go down. So I'll stick to my own flirtation with our cultural darling. Why do the same obsessive thing obsessively and call it art (or anything)? For that matter, why cram one more thing into an impossible schedule? When to find time to see the ocean? To walk nowhere? I just finished The Poisonwood Bible, a tale of contrasts between living and accomplishing; between ancient ways and modern values. Food for thought for a spring season.
This Week's Guest Artists (How to join this project)
Isabel Rivera, Washington Heights, New York City
Sea of Sounds
Living with chromasthesia has been a difficult thing for me, always leaving me to choose between my enchantment of sight and passion for sound. What is chromasthesia? A curse and a blessing. The ability to see music in color. Liszt was a synesthete, and I often perceive the very colors that he wanted to convey in his music. It makes me feel like we are two synesthetics talking to one another through time. The way I discovered I was a synesthete: I'd been sitting in a church one day, listening to an organist rehearse. As she repeated passages, the same fireworks display of color kept repeating themselves before my mind's eyes, uncontrollably. Though I'd always sensed I could see music, I didn't think anything special or scientific about it, until I noticed one day much later in a book about neurological abilities, that there was a name for what I had. I don't do drugs mind you, nor do I drink. I don't need to. God has given me a psychedelia of sound for life. This painting is my approach to sounds I've seen, especially influenced by Debussy's music.
Stephen Beveridge, Washington Heights, New York City
Icon, mixed media
I believe in ritual.
Karen Greene, Washington Heights, New York City
untitled
I think I am getting a bit more abstract. I took this on a walk on a rainy day. I have always been fascinated by water and reflections, and this one got deeper the more I looked.
Renee Tamara Watabe, Verona, New Jersey
Gift of Pearls
Feel like I hit a wall this morning, (as in Mike's photo from two
weeks back, which I thought was inspired, by the way)
I want to make beautiful things, really I do. But I am angry.
Anger. A Woman's Anger.
Why is it so hard to deal with, so intimidating, such a No-No.
We are the Smoother Overs, the Ones who "Make Nice". Supposed
to "digest" everything.
I recently witnessed a friend of mine release some anger she had surrounding
the experience of being violently raped.
That has got to be some SERIOUS anger.
Yet, She let it go.
Let it go.
I thought, How can she DO that?
Intuitively I think it has to do with looking at it fully, fearlessly.
We tend to shut down in moments of pain or anger. At least I do.
So my photo is something about looking at things that make me angry,
wanting to feel the anger,
knowing it won't destroy me,
and then reach the point of letting it go.
Anthony Gonzalez, Washington Heights, New York City
Anonymous Homeless Man on the A Train
Recently my friend Robert died. Robert was a homeless man who had been a fixture in our neighborhood for over a decade. His post was the entrance to the Smile Deli on the corner of 181st and Fort Washington. Everyday we greeted each other and I would give him some change. Sometimes he would ask me or my wife to go into the deli and buy him some Frosted Flakes. Once in a while we would give him ten dollars to pay for a room somewhere. I can't say I knew him well, and I don't want to idealize him, but the Robert I knew was a gentle, soft spoken, vulnerable man who always had some playful upbeat thing to say to my daughter as she grew from toddlerhood to adolescence. Someone posted a sign on the spot where he used to stand, announcing a memorial service to be held at the church across the street. Robert had no family. I was pleasantly surprised to see no less than sixty people at the service, most of whom I recognized from the neighborhood, few that I actually knew personally. I felt an affinity with these people who came out to pay homage to a homeless man. They took turns going up to the podium to tell "Bobby" stories. I learned that Robert had been a sergeant in the army, was a Vietnam Vet, had owned a home in New Jersey and had cleared land and built a house in upstate New York. He also had had a wife and daughter, both of whom he lost when his house burned down. Shortly thereafter he had a breakdown and ended up on the streets of New York, eventually landing on the corner of our street - the corner of our lives.
Claire Adas
3 paths, video still
The most important thing is the path and who you walk it with.
Comments on Last Week's Now:Here:This
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From Renee
Regarding Sugar and Butter Photo
As the project winds to a close, I was browsing through archived weeks. Found Anya's Sugar and Butter.(Feb.13) Must have missed it before. It really touched me with a sense of peace and comfort. Visually, the meeting of the curve of the sugar bowl and the angle of the butter dish is very graceful, makes me think of an asian table scene, or ikebana, for some reason.
Tea and Toast. Simple pleasure in life. Thanks Anya.Regarding Scott's Redhead Photo
Scott, thanks for making me laugh out loud!
From Peter:
I agree with virtually everything Tim Folzenlogen says about "people." However, I find that with the people in my community of colleagues and friends, some of these traits diminish over time. That is why my focus is on building these relationships, regardless of how slowly they deepen, and on recognizing human nature's flaws as inevitable until my community becomes stronger. I apologize, Tim, if anything I've written has been flip or antagonistic toward your focus.
From Rosa:
Preface
I feel a little nervous about my submission, both the image and "what's on my mind" text, plus my comments. At first I thought my discomfort was about my "didactic and perhaps strident" tone, something I like to avoid, but often can't.But then I realized that there was more.
I am a fearful person, having grown up with my parents' fearful memories. My father taught me to speak out, and then was horrified that I would did so. He warned me not to talk freely on the phone, and when once I was ill and in the hospital, thought that I may have been poisoned for my political beliefs.Years later, I found out that I actually did have a police "Red File" on my activities. They had carefully documented my comings and goings from National
Lawyers Guild meetings where we, students, were plotting to buy a house for a legal collective.
Although I out speak out publicly, I am afraid to be politically visible on a personal level. And although I consider my artwork personal and political,
it is not so in the usual sense. I understand now that my lack of participation in the "comments" section is more complex than I thought, and that my move from words to art in my life was possibly the only way I could speak about myself personally.When Peter first suggested this project for Artists Unite I thought it was a good idea, but wasn't sure I would participate. Fortunately, I did. It has
been a wonderful and challenging experience.
Peter, I want to thank you personally and on behalf of Artists Unite. This very simple and elegant idea has made us visible to each other, visible to
ourselves and visible to the community. It's reach and breadth are unknown and what can be more wonderful? Thank you.Comments
It is highly unusual for me to not engage in dialogue, or enter conversation. I have been a groupie since the age of 13 and am presently involved in
numerous projects all focused on "deepening connections and strengthening the bonds
of community" (a line I'm stealing from my self). I love talking, I love discussions, and I even love meetings__coming alive in the challenge to be real,
receptive and present with the supposed "other". I believe that relationship is the major context for personal and spiritual growth and that all other forms are tested on its terrain. I am moved by much of what I see and read each week on NHT and care deeply about the questions raised in the comments. So, as comments mount up and a seeming 'debate' ensues, I ask myself, why have I not participated, why have I not written, why have I not been my usual self?For me, making "art" is the only place where I don't work in group or by consensus. In this realm things are solely mine to make as I please and to articulate what I feel, not in thought but "in sight". It is the other half of the I/Thou equation where I make myself real. Therefore, I have taken this "art"
opportunity to do just art. Of course I understand that I am not being asked to make collective art, or that making "art" precludes dialogue, interchange or
exchange. In fact I have been in dialogue with the images and attendant words__and have been influenced and emboldened by them to create new work. I have just not been in direct communication / relationship online. (Is that an oxymoron?) However, PP's remarks last week about one of my entries totally surprised me. I too liked the piece but was concerned that it was too facile to merit submission. The important effect of her feedback, and Renee's in the past, has been important, and now makes me evaluate my involvement.Although I needed to be quiet, I regret not having actively participated in the "comments" section. I feel I missed an opportunity to "strengthen" community among us and have silently taken advantage of what others have done. This is not guilt or flagellation (I leave that expertise to Mr. Mel), I'm just acknowledging that it takes work and time to write each other, and am thanking those that have done so.
Some past exchanges between Tim and Peter brought the following quotes to mind:
"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." -P.B. Shelly
"Truth is beauty and beauty is truth, that is all ye know and need know on earth." -John Keats
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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