Artist Eric Waugh painted an image of John Lennon and placed it in the Bandshell on Wednesday to make a plea for peace and celebrate the 45th anniversary of Lennon’s song “Imagine”.
Eric Waugh on top of his painting. Photo by @RobynNYC.
Photo by Michael Vooss.
Marianne Hettinger sent us the following message and photo of her and the artist:
“I just came across artist Eric Waugh in Central Park , who made the 45 foot painting, called “Imagine Again,” for the International Day of Peace today in honor of the 45th anniversary of the release of Lennon’s song “Imagine” on September 9th. Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz was at hand as well and there was a guitar player/ singer. Eric shared with me, that during a bout of depression about the violence in the world, he stayed in bed drinking wine and one morning decided to do something positive and create this painting. He made it in only 88 hours and got a permit from central park within days to put it on display for today’s international day of peace.
He drove here from Texas with the painting folded up. It’s a very beautiful painting of John Lennon holding a guitar. I felt very inspired and so did the people who stopped to look at it.
In the world, where the news are unfortunately full of reports of terror and tragedy, this is a very positive beautiful message.”
Photo by John Stone.
If you take photos send them to us at westsiderag at gmail.com.
O.M.G., wait till the tourists discover this. They’ll be pushing each other aside to grab that selfie!
Why, they might even give up endlessly watching those break-dancers on the mall nearby!
It was supposedly up for one day only.
Excellent philosophy. If only there were a little more “love” in the world. 🙂 Thanks, Eric for sharing your vision.
I’m John Lennon’ed out.
Imagine there’s no Trump.
Good job, Marianne. Thanks for sharing with us.
Hipster effort. The artist told some tourists that it was like painting by numbers. If it was that easy, could have involved more community help, like from local schools.
Hi JT, for decades Eric Waugh has volunteered in art classes as well as fundraising for many children’s charities! For example, His “worlds largest Painting ” in 2001 raised money for One Heartland a camp for kids affected by HIV/ AIDS.
He never stops thinking of ways to make life better for others. His “giving back” details can be found on his website ericwaugh.com.
So I would not call him
a self-absorbed hipster! ??
Thank you, Shelley!
Oh please. Anyone in this city can donate money to they feel is a good cause, but fewer of those will actually involve the community.
Love the painting but wish it had remained longer so more people could enjoy it.