Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake (Ohashi Atake no Yudachi) (#58 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo) Sheet: 14 3/16" x 9 1/8" woodblock print 9th month of 1857 Brooklyn Museum Photo Courtesy The Brooklyn Museum Japanese fiction is a great love of mine. My taste ranges widely from the postmodern antics of Murakami, to the quiet intellectualism of Endo, to the luminous spaces of Kawabata, and to the pent up rage of Mishima. In a culture which traditionally values quietly getting along even when catastrophe strikes, fiction allows a space for readers to wail with those who hurt and lash out at those who would oppress. Japanese novels of mystery and horror provide such a space to ponder the darker recesses of humanity. Mystery writer Keigo Higashino, originally from Osaka and now resident in Tokyo, is currently one of the best selling authors in Japan. Reading "The Devotion of Suspect X" provides un...

Take a video tour through Gilbert 'Magu' Lujan's Hollywood and Vine Metro station. I am heartened to see the appreciation that Magu is receiving after his death. It seems that Los Angeles does remember its own. More at: Appreciation: Gilbert 'Magu' Lujan's Hollywood and Vine Metro station

Gregg Chadwick Chicanismo (for Gilbert "Magu" Lujan) 22"x30" monotype on paper 2011 With great sadness, the city of Los Angeles mourns the passing of the trail breaking artist Gilbert "Magu" Lujan. Please read Peter Clothier's heartfelt words on the Huffington Post: Followers of the contemporary art scene -- and indeed Chicano art enthusiasts everywhere -- will want to hear of this opportunity to come to the support of one of its most important pioneers and practitioners. Gilbert "Magu" Lujan is currently in a life-and-death battle with cancer, and is caught up in the pernicious web of our national health care nightmare. Friends and family are staging a series of fund-raising events in August to help with medical costs and the preservation of Magu's legacy. Please continue at Gilbert "Magu" Lujan: A Benefit

Gregg Chadwick Brecht's Song 30"x22" monotype on paper 2011 In memory of Amy Winehouse.

Amy Winehouse Back to Black BBC One Sessions Singer Amy Winehouse died today in London at 27. Her struggles with addiction were well documented. But against all odds her voice broke through the pain and called to us to live our lives with soul. She will be greatly missed. Photo Getty Images

Norman Rockwell The Problem We All Live With 36” x 58” oil on canvas 1963 Collection The Norman Rockwell Museum (Currently on loan to the White House through October 2011) Civil Rights icon Ruby Bridges visited the White House on July 15, 2011 to view Norman Rockwell's 1963 painting, The Problem We All Live With , which depicts Ruby as a young girl on her way to first grade after the school board mandated the desegregation of two New Orleans schools in 1960. Six year old Ruby Bridges was escorted by Federal Marshals to New Orleans' William Frantz Public School as its first African American student, ushering in the integration of the local public school system. President Barack Obama, Ruby Bridges, and representatives of the Norman Rockwell Museum view Rockwell’s "The Problem We All Live With,” hanging in a West Wing hallway near the Oval Office, July 15, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) Norman Rockwell's The Problem We All Live With will...

A nice video from Winona State University documenting my large, commissioned painting from 1999 - Cartographer's Dream.

Gregg Chadwick Calvino's Elephant 30"x40" oil on linen 2011 "In fact, the elephant recognizes the language of his homeland, obeys orders, remembers what he learns, knows the passion of love and the ambition of glory, practices virtues “rare even among men,” such as probity, prudence and equity, and has a religious veneration for the sun, the moon, and the stars." - From Man, the sky and the elephant pp. 315-330 of The Uses of Literature by Italo Calvino, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1986. Pliny the Elder identified the elephant as the animal spiritually “closest to man.” The phrase “Maximum est elephas proximumque humanis sensibus” opens Pliny’s Historia Naturalis , Book VIII. In turn this inspired the brilliant Italian writer, Italo Calvino, in his introductory essay to Pliny’s Historia Naturalis . And I am again reading WS Merwin's recent book of poems - The Shadow of Sirius - and thinking deeply about the mystery of our place in the ...

Gregg Chadwick Setsuko's Room 30"x40" oil on canvas 2011

Jasper Johns Flag 42 1/4" x 60 5/8" Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood 1954-55 (dated on reverse 1954) Gift of Philip Johnson in honor of Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Museum of Modern Art, New York © 2011 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY "In its stilled lucidity lurk half-readable stories: the small-fry stuff of yesterday's papers, or important events? Do they add up to some secret meaning? There is the sense of many lives, many narratives hidden beneath the common identity of Americans. This painting, this artwork, is like a great American novel. It captures in its monumental ghostly depths the intricate truths every simple facade conceals. Who are Americans? What are they like? The truth lies deeper than the stars and stripes." - Jonathan Jones (The Guardian) More at: The truth beneath Jasper Johns' stars and stripes

Gregg Chadwick Rauch Licht (Smoke Light) 30"x22" monotype on paper 2011