Building a robust and active community is not an easy task. We at Juxtaviews have been asking ourselves recently how we can inspire more responses and feedback from our readers. I thought I would track down community leader, artist, musician, and Artists-Unite board President, Peter Ferko and get his thoughts on balancing multiple interests and building both online and offline communities.
One event Peter has helped cultivate at Artists-Unite is the Art Spark. Every other Friday at 16:00 GMT (11:00 a.m. Eastern), participating artists create work and state the most important thing on their minds right now. I find it very inspiring and refreshing in its informal approach to making and displaying art.
In his own art work, Peter uses photography as well as action-oriented projects as a means of engaging other artists in ways that encourage community and dialog. When in the mood, he plays bass and sings in the SoLow Bass Show.
Peter Ferko: At First Glance (tile wall), digital print 13″ x 19″
Name, age, favorite magazine, and when you sleep at night you dream about what?
Peter Ferko, 50, my favorite magazine is The Brooklyn Rail, and when I sleep at night I dream alternately of having finished the project I couldn’t get to and of realizing I never attended the class I signed up for.
What compelled you to start Artists-Unite?
Artists Unite was actually started by three women who live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City (Rosa Naparstek is still one of the Directors). They saw so many artists living at the top of Manhattan but doing all their arts-related activities downtown, and realized the potential value of creating programs uptown. I became involved when the organization incorporated and was invited to be on the steering committee and then to be President of the Board. My goal has been to create quality programming that transcends location; to interact with artists I admire; and to make opportunities for making and experiencing art locally and globally.
Peter Ferko: Lightow (Metropolitan Hotel), C-Print 20″ x 20″
I love the idea behind Artspark. It’s like an assignment with, what I would consider, an extreme limitation on time allotted for production. I often need to remind myself that great work can be produced in a limited amount of time. It’s almost like a zen excersize. Is this what you intended? Do you have a favorite (or several favorite) Artspark works from the archive?
The art spark is less about limitation than intention. There is a metaphysical concept that the thing one focuses on grows. I was hoping to grow a community, so I asked artists essentially, through the art spark, to focus on this virtual community. (The time ‘limitation’ for creating work is up to the participants’ interpretation. Some take hours starting at the designated time; some write at the designated time; some just participate ‘in spirit.’)
I have many favorite works, because they are works by artists I admire. But more importantly to me, there are many great moments in the archive: In the first spark, Tim Folzenlogen made a self-portrait holding a clock that explicitly shows the Art Spark time. Joel Adas subsequently included a clock in his self-portrait. The December 2, 2005 spark was special in that I had intended to create a physical catalog and thought I would cull it from the entire year. It turned out that my grant funding required that the catalog be finished by year end, i.e. in two weeks, so I used one art spark as the catalog. There are great coincidental visual themes in that week. But in fact, the collective unconscious-like themes happen often. One week, Petr Shvetsov, an artist from Russia wrote,
“What is on my mind?
There is darkness in my mind.
Allah is great and very kind.”
Piero Ribelli, a New York photographer, the same week, wrote,
“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…”
I also loved when people are daring enough to submit different media, for example, when Claire Adas started submitting video projects, and when Russian artists Alexander and Olga Florensky submitted a hand-drawn map showing the apartment they were about to buy.
Much of your life has been devoted to nurturing communities of artists. It seems like such a paradox to me that artists find cheap rent and studio space in run-down neighborhoods, and then are forced out when the cost of living becomes too high (due to their efforts). What is it about arts communities that can turn neighborhoods around and how can we keep the artists there?
I think the general public is drawn toward art and artists, because art touches on the larger Truth, which is naturally attractive. But in our culture, the Truth plays second fiddle to materialism (a.k.a. practicality). People who have gravitated to an area because it is artsy have no spare time or money to support the arts that made their neighborhood attractive, so the artists do not prosper with the popularity of the neighborhood. And we end up with the mediocrity of homogeneous gentrification. I do not have a solution short of social policies that suppport artists.
Do you think that social networking and community-building online can become a substitute for real communities, or at least perpetuate them if the physical community begins to disperse? Are the challenges found in “bricks and mortar” community building different than the challenges of establishing an online community?
The Internet is useful for connecting, sharing, and documenting. It makes it possible to meet someone you would never meet otherwise. So in that regard it is equivalent in value to a physical community. But there is something energetic about meeting someone in person that cannot be acheived, in my opinion, over the Internet. (Just ask anyone who has computer dated!) Physical communities have tremendous diversity, so identifying and pulling together people with common interests is difficult; on the Internet you can find people with common interests, but coming together physically can be impossible. The ideal is to use one to solidify the other. And the Internet can keep connected physical colleagues who move.
Peter Ferko: untitled (Trainscape series), mixed media 12″ x 12″
I was reading your CV and noticed that you also are a musician and have devoted a great chunk of your life to musical pursuits. I can relate, being a musician and an artist myself. Is it the same force which drives you to create music as art? What are the similarities and differences in wearing those two hats?
The best ‘songs’ I have been writing lately are visual art works. I find that I tend to play music from a place of longing or unhappiness; while I make visual art when I am more contented. The fundamental creative workings seem identical to me. I hope to combine the two sometime soon.
I also noticed that you have created an artist book titled “Confession of a Renaissance Man”. Do you have anything to confess to our readers on the subject? Do you have advice for students who feel they must decide among several talents/skills that they may want to nurture?
I practice yoga, where there is a great emphasis on balancing effort and ease. My ‘renaissance man’ musings came from the ease with which I pursued several kinds of work: visual art, music, business, yoga, and all their subcategories. (Ferko’s song, Renaissance Man, has been added as a podcast at the end of this interview). To students, I would recommend the balancing of effort with that ease, i.e., you have to develop the discipline to get something done; to face the hard questions; to be able to fail and keep going. If you can do that, then do it all! Artists Unite ISSUE, our online magazine has a flurry of articles about multiple-media artists who, like Brian Eno, David Byrne, and Hal Hartley avoid hard boundaries between media.
I was reading an answer you gave fellow artist, J.T. Kirkland, in an interview last summer. You said, “if you follow your natural desire to make marks, people end up calling you an artist.” If that desire to create stops arising, do you actively do something to re-inspire it, or do you let it come and go and simply make art as you feel the urge?
I never don’t have the desire to make art. I think it drives my wife crazy sometimes. Sometimes I need to figure out which direction to go in next. But Kiki Smith said recently on WNYC, that you can’t force your work to do what you intend, but you must be the best of anyone at observing your work and follow where your work is leading.
Who was the last artist to blow your mind?
Just one? Last year, we interviewed Thomas Nozkowski on the occasion of his opening at BravinLee Projects. His works on paper were astounding. And I’m nuts about composer John Hollenbeck. But probably, if I could just pick one, I would choose performance artists Bill Aitchinson and Ivana Müller, who presented How Heavy are my Thoughts, at the Dance Theater Workshop last year. A great collaboration that was brilliantly humorous and challenged our highbrow notions without succumbing to run-of-the-mill irony. You can read about it here.
