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 supported in part by the Puffin Foundation
Now:
Here: This
January 16, 2004, 16:00 Greenwich Mean Time
Wendy Newton, Washington Heights, New York City
Surrender
Reading tea leaves, coffee grinds, palms. Divination. Finding meaning in random events. I must have been an oracle in a past life, or else maybe aspiring to it in a future one. The interpretation of random events informs everything I do. My brain generates images and metaphors so quickly that it always feels like a random decision to choose one way of expressing over another or even choosing what to express. So I decided to conduct an experiment to see if I could stick to a random set of parameters. A simple pebble toss. It was hard. I struggled terribly. I wanted to intervene so badly. Just fix this, change that, move this pebble, manipulate the angle. The results were disappointing. Even my point and shoot camera, an instrument designed to rob the photographer of all control, conspired in the lesson of surrender -- in most of the shots I couldn’t even figure out after much deliberation what the camera had done with the focus, and the image seemed to have completely disappeared. It was almost spooky. An element of pure accident showed up and I was irked. Thanks to Joel for helping me to articulate for myself that intuition plays the biggest role in moving through the maze.
Jayme McLellan, Washington, D.C.
Untitled
I am so happy to see him.
[please note, Jayme has a late entry in Jan. 2. See it in the archives]
Joel Adas, Brooklyn
Side of Building
The most important thing on my mind now is the practice of art. I feel that this project speaks to this practice wonderfully in that it integrates whatever one is doing creatively into a sort of group consciousness. I have been painting and drawing this building seen out of our living room window for several years now, and it is very familiar, like the contours of my own face. I am drawn to it and how it changes with light and the time of year. I draw it repeatedly almost as a ritual. And sometimes an individual drawing will stand out and say "paint me" and others the drawing is enough.
James Huckenpahler, Washington, D.C.
Untitled
1
looking for ways to invoking randomness in adobe illustrator
2
'Baudolino' by Umberto Eco
3
moving
4
Motown
5
had a cold for 2 weeks
6
Zinn, in 'Artists In Times Of War' does not suggest alternatives, for
example to the US participation in WW2. While I acknowledge a long discussion
of that is beyond the scope and intention of the book, I think a some
discussion, or pointer to texts that cover that discussion, would have
made his arguments much stronger. Does Hickey write about art as political
action? I can't remember.
7
Bug Eyed Monsters here
8
Reading an essay in the nude might be grounds for dismissal.
Tim Folzenlogen, Washington Heights, New York City
Words and Image 3
I often wake up in the middle of the night, totally freaked out.
My life story is one of always following my inspirations, uncompromisingly.
If I think something, I say that. If I feel I should do something, then that is what I do. I’ve never told a lie. I’ve never, not been, completely honest and sincere.
It’s worked so far, yet I always find myself standing at the edge of the abyss, wondering if the universe will come through yet again.
I’m never sure, as the stakes are never quite the same, the next time around.
The only thing that keeps me sane is to recount my life, step by step, contemplating every decision I made, and why I made it.
Given those exact circumstances, I know I’d do it all again, exactly the same way. It’s almost like I had no choice.
I think this is true of everyone.
Jacie Lee Almira, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City
In My Bag
There was a train delay this morning and the platform at 8th Street was
packed with barely enough space to walk through. Commuters faced
the same direction listening to the P.A. announcement: "There is
a Queens-bound R train making all local stops approaching Cortland Street."
"Jesus Christ," someone exclaimed. Aside from that remark,
the platform was eerily quiet except for the occasional sniffle and
muffled cough. A huddled mass of strangers each expelling their
warm, visible breath into the cold air. The deep chill has frozen
feelings of frustration. Many minutes and subway cars pass, then
the familiar rumble that heralds its coming.
Rosa Naparstek, Washington Heights, New York City
Exposed
I am not afraid when I love. It becomes safe to be real,
reaching across
synapses, chasms__breaching the abyss. Open.
Vulnerability is something "devoutly to be wished",
beyond naked, beyond
nude__beyond defense. I want to feel.
I have been affected by the images, language and integrity
of the other
participants and am inspired to go beyond my usual mode of work and challenged
to create fuller dialogue and communication.
I write these things late at night, as the morning comes
in before I can
edit myself of hope.
"What is the real origin of evil...denial of your vulnerabilities, the shame of helplessness and the feeling of being unlovable create evil and destructive attitudes and feelings. Evil is a defense against suffering ... and as all defenses, they create more suffering, as well as confusion, by dint of no longer being connected with the real feelings in the self."
(Eva Pierrako, Fear No Evil, Pathwork Press, 1993, p. 140. )
I'm thinking about "going back," especially to old parts of
life, early
childhood, previous cities, former homes. Given enough years, these places
and times take on the quality of dream, which makes them completely
subjective and almost unexplainable.
For instance, it's like when you walk through a garden with little narrow
paths that wind around tiny beds. Everything is so small and special,
and
you look at everything very carefully as you move along, even things which
are right next to you, you look at them as if they were in an exhibition,
with you on one side and the plants on the other, on the side of the
precious things to be observed. And when you remember a certain place,
or
go back to it after many years, you perhaps experience it with the same
care and attention, even though it might be only the corner of a pasture
where two lines of a wooden fence come together, or the base of a
particular large tree with spreading roots, or a section of dirt road
where
it winds around a small hillside near a boulder, or an intersection, or
an
alley, or a front door.
Anya Szykitka, Brooklyn
I wrote this in Brooklyn.
Jason Gubbiotti, Washington, D.C.
Rover
1 new ways of living
2. applying for a visa. see > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4012231/
3. Wexner Center for the Arts
4. reading more about mars than iowa or new hampshire
5 poverty is becoming a lifestyle
Peter Ferko, Washington Heights, New York City
'Does Bliss Show?' Portrait #3: Curating Now: Here: This
The most important thing on my mind right now is the group of contributors to Now: Here: This. These artists, whom I've admired (or am just meeting on line), all saw something interesting in this simple idea: come together while making art to have that coming together be yet another layer of making art. As the curator, I keep redefining what constitutes participation--it is amazing to see how such a simple premise can be interpreted so many ways when artists are working this work into their larger body of work. Tim Folzenlogen's self portrait with a clock that opened the exhibit is completely literal in terms of execution: it was art made at 11:00 (although the idea for the portrait obviously came before and cleverly hints at his other work); Rosa Naparstek began once without a specific idea at 11 and worked for hours starting then; this is the first time I have thought of writing exactly at 11, although other artists have written at 11 about a piece they created previously; still others have submitted something without regard for time at all. I have even deeply experienced participation from artists who haven't submitted anything yet--we talked about the project in general or about a specific submission idea they were enthusiastic about, but it hasn't yet happened. I think of them as participants, too.
And the nature of this new layer? Aside from the infinite potential of the comment section, I keep thinking about whether the actual submissions are a group of monologs or whether in the context of artists' language, they constitute the beginning of a dialog as well. It can be frustrating to show work with the minimal feedback the web gallery provides- -no shooting the shit over beers after hanging each week's show. But we have to assume everyone notices- -like the silent majority. My take is that if the participants 1) are looking at the other work, which can't help but influence them, and 2) contribute again with that influence inside, it's a dialog.
This Week's Guest Artists (How to join this project)
Anthony Gonzalez, Washington Heights, New York City
Untitled
I worry about how my eleven year old daughter will adjust to this psychotic age. In the making of art there can be found a sanctuary - An escape into (not out of) the world. It is all inclusive, like a prayer. You cultivate your ability to stumble upon/into it. It always entails chance, accidents, hazard. The door opens for the briefest moment then slams shut. How to teach that to a child? How can the immediacy and purity of a of a single well placed mark compete with the firestorm of sensory overload which is the wallpaper of her life in this fierce city?
Karen Greene, Washington Heights, New York City
Red Onion
Most important thing: finding new ways to see the ordinary.
Comments on Last Week's Now:Here:This
submit a comment | view archived weeks
From Tim Folzenlogen (regarding January 9):
I wonder what Jacie's unanswered questions are.
I love Rosa's statement - the vulnerability of it. It made me feel me,
like
few things ever do. I could write oceans about each line.
I share few reference points with James, though I can relate to broke.
I'm not sure what Scott is talking about, but maybe that's his point.
Good luck with that, Peter.
Wendy's statement reminds me of my daughter. She describes her brain as
buzzing bees. She likes the bees.
I don't think you ever get what you want, Piero, but you always get what
you need.
Pat has creative block, yet has recently been shocked and awed. I'm not
sure what Pat wants to be creative about, but, seems to me, shock and
awe should supply all kinds of fertile ground to grow lots of interesting
things.
Tim has a hot bod.
Jason's quick ideas say that.
Karen's photograph is beautiful. Heather Garden is the one in Fort Tryon?
I went to the opening reception for "Now: Here: This" and met
a number of the artists. I told them that I hoped they would all comment
a lot and have an on-going dialogue.
They said I should start, and provoke them to respond.
From Peter Ferko:
I often think of time as far more of an "agreement" than a reality. These past few weeks' submissions add to that feeling as people respond to each other's work before even seeing it. Or perhaps we're just using telepathy...
From PP:
At our opening I met Scott J. Plunkett, who is totally adorable.
From Renee, Verona, NJ (regarding January 9):
-James' Untitled image
I have no idea what the lower image is - but the zebra stripes and striated patterns make me think "jungle" or "hot" - while the above image appears to be cold snow. Yet the two correlate in flow and motion, and thus make me think of how seeming extremes in the universe actually correlate, relate and are the same.
-Wendy's thoughts
Reading about her anticipation of the moment, and all those circular
paths the mind goes down - well, it made my skin hurt thinking about it.
I know what you mean.
Time, infinity,.....pass the bananas, honey.
-Karen's Heather Garden
Sweet and to the point.
Your photo says it all.
Make a comment for this section of
the exhibit site by clicking
here
or send email directly to Artists who have listed their website or email
in About the artists
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