Notes From The City: An Abundant Life

There is a Native American creation story about Coyote bringing fire. In it, the people are suffering because fire is kept away from them on the top of a mountain and guarded day and night by three sisters. Coyote, always in the mood for adventure, for whatever reason, decides to help the people, so he asks his three sisters, who happen to be huckleberries who live in his stomach, for advice. At first they don't want to give it to him, because they say he will say it was his idea all along as he always does, but because Coyote is always very wise, he commands hail from the sky to frighten them and they give him the information he needs. He gathers all the animals together, and after he uses his wisdom to find the perfect time to take hold of the fire brand and run with it as far and fast as he can, they each in turn use their own skills to make a kind of relay - with the squirrel going over the tree-tops and the otter swimming underwater in the streams and the antelope outrunning everyone, until the remaining ember is swallowed by a frog who spits it out into a log where it lives. Coyote then teaches the people how to coax the fire from wood, so that ever after they can make fires for warmth and light and cooking their food.

I love Native American stories - they are colorful and fanciful, and seem at times to make no earthly sense at all. They are magical and have their own logic, but there are certain themes that run through them, so that when we read enough, we start to understand a little more about the world around us. I don't know why Coyote has sisters who are huckleberries who live in his stomach, but I do know that the advice they give him to have everyone working together using their own unique gifts and talents is a lesson that all good leaders know. Another part of their good advice was to have him start off the relay race by using his own wisdom and vision and run as far as he could on his own before he began to pass the baton. To be a good leader takes wisdom and vision and a willingness to lead by example, as well as a good sense of humor, and that is why when I began to think about writing about the artist John Fathom, I thought of this story.

There is one place where he does not match the description of Coyote that I have written here. Far from taking credit as Coyote does for someone else's ideas, from my experience of him, John Fathom is so humble a person that in his telling it is everyone else who is doing everything and he is just allowing them the space to do it. The truth is that thirteen years ago he had the idea to move into a raw urban industrial loft building in an area of Jersey City that few people would have had the courage to live in, and he proceeded over the years to create a mecca for artists of all kinds to live and work and thrive. It is not easy to do what he has done, and to continue to do it year after year, and I applaud him for it. I met him first at the Jersey City Artist Studio Tour (JCAST) and Jersey City Mural Arts Program (JMAP) exhibit at Cast Iron Lofts that I wrote about a few weeks ago, and just as I had been unprepared for the gorgeous space that Cast Iron Lofts shared with the artists for that exhibit, when I met with John Fathom at 660 Studios, I was amazed by the space and scope of work that he has created and assisted in the creation of there. I'll share some photos here, but they can't do any of it justice - contact John and visit with him, and walk with him into a whole new world.

The Artist John Fathom, Art Director Of 660 Studios

Brings Light And Warmth And A Creative Force
To A Raw Space

660 Grand Street

Jersey City, NJ
Art Where Noted Below By
John Fathom, John Ruddy, Cris Nyne, Alex Pergament, Nyugen Smith, Alicia Ruth

www.660studios.com

www.jfathom.com

John Fathom

John Fathom And Nyugen Smith

John Fathom And John Ruddy

John Ruddy

Cris Nyne

Alex Pergament

Alicia Ruth

A Breathtaking Space For Breathtaking Art

Another amazing artist who I have been honored and blessed to meet is Eddy Bogaert, who recently invited me to an opening for a group show at Georges Berges Gallery on West Broadway in Manhattan. I lived not far from the gallery for many years, back in the days before SoHo became what it is now, and I lived there through the changes that has made it a destination for art lovers all over the world. Georges Berges has been in that location since 2015, and this gallery is one of the places that I am so happy to know is there and thriving. The time that I spent there brought me back to the reasons why I first loved New York and why SoHo will always hold a special place in my heart. The art on display at the current show is breathtaking and the space itself is perfection. The website describes it as a museum gallery, and that is exactly what it is. Visit Georges Berges Gallery and visit the SoHo of the past with an eye to the future.

Georges Berges Gallery
462 West Broadway
New York, New York
www.bergesgallery.com