Friday, February 26, 2010

Phil Cousineau's "The Oldest Story in the World"


My painting The Poet's Dawn is used as the cover image for Phil Cousineau's new book The Oldest Story in the World. Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero With a Thousand Faces, had this to say about Cousineau's work:

"It's just marvelous the way you've demonstrated how similar the journeys in myth are to those in art, literature, movies, and dreams. You've done what all artists and writers must do with the great stuff of myth: you've made it your own.
-Joseph Campbell on Phil Cousineau

Phil's Website:
More Details on Phil Cousineau and His Collaborations With Gregg Chadwick

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Soul of Art: Peter Clothier's "Persist"



Peter Clothier's Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce arrives at the perfect time. As the art world tries to reinvent itself in the current economic malaise, Clothier's book inspires us to see the soul and spirit inherent in the creative process. Money may not be the root of all evil but it is the root of a lot of bad art. Peter Clothier challenges artists, writers, actors and filmmakers to value artistic process as a goal in itself rather than a path to wealth and power. Most of all, Clothier urges us to keep on creating - to never give up. The world would be a lesser place without the arts. A beautiful, inspiring book. Highly recommended.

Available from the publisher at:
Peter Clothier's Persist from Parami Press
And from Amazon:
Peter Clothier's Persist

Peter Clothier's blog The Buddha Diaries is continually informative and entertaining.

Peter Clothier has a series of upcoming events in Los Angeles. See below:

Spreadsheets Can Save Him

Spreadsheets can save him
by Kent Chadwick

Where’s the pattern? What ratio will show
he’s getting better, that he’ll breathe again
on his own? The ventilator pushes
puffs of warm air through our son’s trachea
every time his brain asks for oxygen,
into his second set of lungs, damaged
too soon by pneumonia, scarred and stiffened.
The machine ka-shooshing eighteen or more
times a minute to make Luke breathe when he
needs, and it graphs his breath, reads his volumes,
scoring the resistance—centimeters
of water pressure—ready to alarm
and warn of dangers, displaying seven
variables in LED orange
with each breath, repeatedly—and I stare.
My hope has fallen to this new machine,
that maybe, maybe its gentler aid
can coax Luke’s lungs into recovery.

What numbers, what ratios show progress?,
something the doctors no longer expect.
Is it peak pressures to tidal volumes?
89 to 760
Or his diaphragm’s nerve activity
to the ventilator’s support level?
62, 70 to 1.5
What is significant? What is just noise?
So most every night at ten I write down
forty numbers, take them back to the room
where we are staying that evening—hotel’s
or friends’—enter them into tables, graph,
color, and label them to find something
that the intensive care doctors have missed
and I could show, “See this! He’s improving.”
Spreadsheets can save him.

But Luke gets annoyed
when he sees me staring at the machines.
He mouths, “Stop looking at those.” But he means
“Look at me.” He doesn’t hope in numbers.
And the truth’s blurted out, when Luke crashes,
by the respiratory therapist bagging
him, pumping up his oxygenation
with her hands, squeezing life into him for
another day, worried, focused on him,
forgetting I’m in the room, forgetting
all the euphemisms: “His lungs are bricks.”

LOOK Gallery Opening: February 18, 2010




Kelly Colbert, MarySue Heilemann, Alan Caudillo & Alana Caudillo at LOOK Gallery, Feb 18, 2010


Gregg Chadwick
The Crossing and Arlington at LOOK Gallery, Feb 18, 2010


Ramon Lopez at LOOK Gallery, Feb 18, 2010



Saul Janson, Nell Marshall, Alana Caudillo & Alan Caudillo at LOOK Gallery, Feb 18, 2010




MarySue Heilemann, Huibrie Pieters, Kobus Pieters, Mat Gleason at LOOK Gallery, Feb 18, 2010

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Dalai Lama Visits Los Angeles



(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times / February 20, 2010)

Hope to see you there today. The Dalai Lama and Sheryl Crow at the Gibson Amphitheatre in support of Whole Child International.

More at: Dalai Lama Launches L.A. Visit

And my reactions to the event will appear on Speed of Life later this week.


Barack Obama met with the Dalai Lama at the White House this week.
Photo: White House

Friday, February 12, 2010

Invitation to My Opening February 18, 2010 at the LOOK Gallery in Los Angeles

The Crossing
Gregg Chadwick
The Crossing
72"x36" oil, monotype and collage on Japanese Torinoko paper 2010

The morning of my last day on a trip to Thailand, was particularly luminous. I got up especially early and wandered through the alleys of Chiang Mai, following some monks on their serene morning pilgrimage. The light was almost incandescent and the blur of movement seemed to create paintings for me. I just needed to pay attention. To really see. I spent the time on the short flight to Bangkok watching a kind of film playing in my mind of saffron robes scintillating in the morning mist. Later, as I waited for my connecting flight to San Francisco, I caught sight of a different clip on a television monitor as the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. It was September 11, 2001. I felt the horror of the crowd as we watched in disbelief. I longed for home and my son. Weeks later when finally back in my studio, the juxtaposition of the monks’ serenity in Thailand that day and the traumatic explosions on the other side of the globe, stayed with me. The saffron robed monks in my work are direct echoes of that experience and that day. For me, these monks are spiritual pilgrims that lead us away from the destruction and waste of violence, racism, and hatred. I began painting them, giving space to their calm. The resulting paintings led to a series, and some recent large works-on-paper on this theme are featured in the LOOK Gallery's upcoming exhibition 100 for 1000.
(February 18 to March 31, 2010)

More Images at: Gregg Chadwick at LOOK Gallery
More info at: LOOK Gallery

100 for 1000 opens at the LOOK Gallery in Los Angeles on Thursday, February 18th, 2010. The exhibit runs from February 18th until March 31st. A main gallery wall provides a contemplative space for my recent large works on paper and I will have a large number of 30"x22" monotypes on display as well.

Artists include:
Ann Arden, Sally Peterson, Gregg Chadwick, Eric Poppleton, Cathy Charles, Jeff Robinson, Ghislaine Fenmore, Ronald Santos, Jerri Levi, Bruna Stude, Mike Lohr, Artie Twitchell, Ramon Lopez, Kent Twitchell, Stephanie Mercado, Mike Vegas, Chris Naylor, Adam Wolpert and Walt Peregoy


LOOK Gallery
1933 S. Broadway, Suite 111
Los Angeles, CA 90007
RSVP at (213)748-1113
OPENING RECEPTION FEBRUARY 18 6-9PM

Map It: Directions to the LOOK Gallery

Sunday, February 07, 2010

New Orleans Wins & Turner Travels!

Speed of Life Called It!

Update:


Joseph Mallord William Turner ( April 23, 1775-December 19, 1851)
The Fifth Plague of Egypt
48" x 72" oil on canvas 1800
Indianapolis Museum of Art
photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Museum of Art

Spurred on by fellow artblogger, Tyler Green, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Indianapolis Museum of Art - put their paintings on the line over todays Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts.

I called an improbable New Orleans victory over the Colts. In which case the Indianapolis Museum of Art will lend Turner's vibrant and mysterious The Fifth Plague of Egypt to the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Check out Tyler's blog for the ultimate in museum director trash talk and mannered New Orleans (and Indianapolis) grace as well.

New Orleans Museum of Art director E. John Bullard summed up the good spirited rivalry to Tyler:

"Max is a gracious opponent. Thanks for accepting the wager of a Claude from New Orleans for a Turner from Indianapolis. But this is definitely the Saints year. They are the Dream Team and in New Orleans we know that dreams come true. Geaux Saints!!!"

Somewhere Degas is smiling.



Claude Lorrain (1600-1682)
Ideal View of Tivoli
117 x 147 cm oil on canvas 1644
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans
photo courtesy the New Orleans Museum of Art

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Epic Snowstorm Blankets Washington DC


Photo: Susan Walsh/Associated Press

We had friends from Washington DC over for a lovely dinner this week. It was great to share new work with them at my studio and talk deeply about travel and life. Safe travels from the rain to the snow!

From the New York Times:
"Pedestrians walking past the Vietnam War Memorial. An administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called the blizzard "a potentially epic snowstorm" that could rival the 28 inches of snow that a January 1922 storm dropped on the capital."

Much more at:
Snowstorm in Washington

Soheil Tavakoli Envisions a Free Iran in 2010


Iran 2010
Part Three of The "Green Movement Digital Paintings" - Digital Paintings, Video & Music by Soheil Tavakoli

Soheil Tavakoli was born on April 17th, 1968 in Tehran, Iran. Soheil became an artist and architect in Iran until he left for the United States in 2004. Tavakoli explains that "he left Iran for the United States in search of a more dynamic and understanding society."

More info at Soheil Tavakoli's Website