Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Film Review - Generosity of Eye: Art Transformed into Education

by Gregg Chadwick

 
Generosity of Eye: Art Transformed into Education from brad hall (Full Film)


Generosity of Eye: Art Transformed into Education is a must watch documentary by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall that documents William Louis-Dreyfus, Julia's father,  as he explains why he decided to sell his bountiful art collection to benefit the Harlem Children's Zone - an educational program in New York, created by Geoffrey Canada to break the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and their families in the Harlem community. 



Julia is often on screen with her father and their scenes together are rich with familial affection. As Julia interviews her father about the art that William has collected over the years and the artists who have created it, she is often overcome with emotion as she discovers the depth of her father's passion for art and for justice.


Geoffrey Canada, William Louis-Dreyfus, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus  


Julia says, "Dad doesn't just collect art, he collects the artists who create it." For her entire life, Julia's dad has collected paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Currently, the collection has grown to over 3,000 pieces and includes artworks by Kandinsky, Dubuffet, Giacometti, George Grosz, Red Grooms, Robert Traylor, Catherine Murphy, Stone Roberts, Graham Nickson, Raymond Mason, Rackstraw Downes, Jean-Baptiste Sécheret, Nicola Hicks, Robert Birmelin, George Boorujy, Thornton Dial, and many others. 

In a telling scene in the film, William explains his thoughts on society's reaction to injustice:  "I think there are two types of people that make up our political outlook. One is a person who sees something happening and thinks that it might happen to him and therefore is worried about it. He notices it and thinks to himself,"That could happen to me." Therefore, he is against the injustice that is happening to a third party. And then there is another kind of person who looks at the injustice and says to himself,"Thank the Lord that is not happening to me." So the fact of it's happening to another person he is for. He is for it psychologically because by virtue of this happening to another person, it's not happening to him. The other guy is against it because when he sees it, he thinks it might happen to him. Therefore, he is against it." 

William's passions are inspiring: art, justice, and humanity.






Can we balance out the slate?

Rachel Carson's Powerful Legacy



Today's Google doodle honors the groundbreaking environmentalist Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring sounded one of the first alarms about the detrimental effect of pesticides on the eco-system. The natural world was my first love as a kid and reading Carson's work was instrumental in spurring me on to look deeply at and respect the complexities of our endangered environment.

Carson's interest in conservation began with her early work as a marine biologist, which led to her award winning book, The Sea Around Us. Subsequently, nature writing provided a powerful vehicle for Carson to bring mainstream attention to the chemicals being dumped daily into our streams and rivers. Her work inspired global bans of the pesticide DDT  and helped foster the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States.

I encourage you to honor Rachel Carson's legacy by spending some time today on the Audubon Society's website, the US National Park Service's site, or your local nature conservancies information boards. All of these sites provide important information on how you can get involved and help preserve our natural world for future generations.

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Santa Barbara Elegy


Gregg Chadwick
Buddha of the Adriatic
24"x18" oil on linen 2014


My heart breaks for the families who have lost their daughters and sons during this weekend's senseless massacre in Santa Barbara. There is so much to discuss, to argue over, to ponder. But tonight, I will continue to mourn and ask that attention be focused on the six University of California, Santa Barbara students who were stolen from us.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

"Dogtown" Featured In Sunday's 35th Anniversary of the Venice Art Walk and Auctions


Gregg Chadwick
Dogtown
17"x17" oil on panel 2014 


My painting Dogtown will be featured in the Silent Art Auction at the 35th Anniversary of the Venice Art Walk and Auctions which will take place on Sunday, May 18, 2014 at Google Los Angeles in the Frank Gehry designed Binoculars Building.

The painting is available for pre-bidding on the auction site Paddle 8 with a select group of donated artworks. http://paddle8.com/auctions/veniceartwalk 

100% of the proceeds from the sale of my painting go to help fund the Venice Family Clinic’s comprehensive health care program for the low-income and uninsured. 


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Thursday, May 08, 2014

President Obama Speaks From the Heart About the Holocaust

by Gregg Chadwick

“Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill.”
-Elie Wiesel


 

Last night in Los Angeles, President Obama gave a beautiful and powerful speech after accepting the Shoah Foundation’s Ambassador of Humanity Award from Steven Spielberg during a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza.

I want to thank the President, Steven Spielberg and all those involved with the Shoah Foundation for recognizing the importance of remembering. The Shoah Foundation gathers and preserves the stories of those who experienced the Holocaust and other atrocities across the globe. Over the past two decades, the Shoah Foundation has recorded tens of thousands of interviews. Researchers and documentarians have traveled to dozens of countries, interviewing survivors of the  Holocaust, and documenting historical evidence of the Armenian Genocide, and other atrocities. The first person accounts that have been gathered are an invaluable resource for future students and scholars.

I remember vividly the moment I first stepped foot in one of the holocaust death camps. That day at Dachau, I was struck by the emptiness and silence of that cruel space. I could feel the absence and longed for humanity instead of barbarism. The Shoah Foundation, through its tireless efforts, gives voice to those whose voices were stolen.

 Full Transcript of President Obama's Remarks Below:

Thank you, Steven, for your incredibly generous words, for this great honor, for your friendship, and most importantly, for the extraordinary work which brings us here all tonight. To Robert Katz and all the members of the board and staff of the Shoah Foundation; to President Max Nikias and everybody at USC; to all the distinguished guests and to all the friends that I see in this audience — it is an incredible honor to be with you as we pay tribute to a remarkable institution and one that makes claim on our moral imagination.

Being here with you tonight, I’m taken back to the visit to Buchenwald that I took in the very first months of my presidency. And I was there with my dear friend, Elie Wiesel. As most of you know, he who had endured that camp as a teenager. And we walked among the guard towers and the barbed wire. We saw the ovens and the crematorium. We saw the memorial to the prisoners, a steel plate heated to the temperature of the human body, as a reminder of our common humanity. And at the end of our visit, as we stood outside the place where his father and so many other souls had perished, Elie spoke these words — he said: “Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill.” Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill.
Gregg Chadwick
Dachau
60"x49" oil and encaustic on linen 1987

And that’s what brings us here tonight. That’s the duty that Steven and all of you embrace — the sacred duty of memory.
Now, just a few decades ago, many survivors of the Shoah were reluctant to share their stories. But one survivor living here in Los Angeles, a leather goods merchant named Poldek Pfefferberg insisted on telling anybody who would listen about the man who had saved his life — a man named Oskar Schindler. And thanks to Poldek’s persistence, Schindler’s story was published as a novel, and the world eventually came to see and understand the Holocaust like never before — in Steven’s remarkable film, Schindler’s List, brought to life in a masterful way by Liam Neeson. And we were reminded that the Holocaust was not a matter of distant history or abstract horror. The voices — the memories — of survivors became immediate, and intimate, became a part of all of us.
I loved what the teacher said in the video about how it entered into our DNA. That’s what stories do. We’re story-telling animals. That’s what Steven does. That’s what Bruce Springsteen does — tells a story that stitches up our fates with the fates of others. And that film gave us each a stake in that terrible history, and a stake in ensuring such atrocities never happen again.
Now, if the story had ended there, it would have been enough — Dayenu. But Steven didn’t stop with Schindler’s List, because there were too many other stories to tell. So he created this foundation to undertake what he called “a rescue mission” — preserving the memories that would otherwise be lost to time.
Over the past two decades, you’ve recorded tens of thousands of interviews in dozens of countries and languages; documented the experience not only of the Holocaust, but of atrocities before and since. As you heard tonight with Celina’s incredible eloquence, you freed voices that could tell their own story in their own way. And as Michelle Clark described so powerfully this evening, you’ve turned that testimony into tools that can be used by scholars and students all around the world.
Now, Steven, I know that for you — like so many here — this is deeply personal. You lost distant relatives in the Holocaust, and heard your mother pass on stories told by survivors. And as you said just a few days ago, the story of the Shoah is the story that you were put on this Earth to tell. So, to you, to everybody at the Shoah Foundation — and for all that you’ve done, for setting alight an eternal flame of testimony that can’t be extinguished and cannot be denied, we express our deepest gratitude. (Applause.)
Of course, none of these stories could be preserved without the men and women with the courage to tell them. And I think sometimes how hard it must be to return to those moments, to remember those darkest of days, to recount how loved ones — husbands, wives, sons, daughters — were taken away. And as Steven mentioned, my great-uncle was a soldier in the 89th Infantry Division, helping to liberate Ohrdruf, a part of Buchenwald. And what he saw during the war left him so shaken that, upon his return to the States, he could not speak of his memories for years to come. We didn’t have a word for it back then, but he returned and closed himself off for months, so shaken was he just to witness what had happened, much less experience it.
So I want to say a special word to the survivors who are with us this evening — not just to the Holocaust, but as Steve noted, survivors of other unimaginable crimes. Every day that you have lived, every child and grandchild that your families have brought into this world has served as the ultimate rebuke to evil, and the ultimate expression of love and hope. And you are an inspiration to every single one of us. And on behalf of all of us, thank you for the example of your lives, and sharing your stories with us and the world. Thank you. (Applause.) We are grateful to you.
Now, let me add that, as Americans, we’re proud to be a country that welcomed so many Holocaust survivors in the wake of World War II. As President, I’m proud that we’re doing more, as Steven noted, to stand with Holocaust survivors in America. We announced Aviva Sufian as our first-ever special envoy to help support Holocaust survivors living in the United States. I’m pleased that Aviva is here tonight. (Applause.) We’ve proposed a new Survivor Assistance Fund to help Holocaust survivors in our country live in dignity and free from poverty. We’re already working with members of Congress and many of your organizations on this project, and tonight I invite more of you to join us. We need to keep faith with these survivors who already have given so much.
The work of this foundation, the testimonies of survivors like those with us tonight, also remind us that the purpose of memory is not simply to preserve the past; it is to protect the future. (Applause.) We tell stories — we’re compelled to tell stories — they’re stories that bring out the best of us, and they’re stories that bring out the worst. The voices of those recorded and unrecorded, those who survived and those who perished, call upon us — implore us and challenge us — to turn “Never Forget” into “Never Again.”
We only need to look at today’s headlines — the devastation of Syria, the murders and kidnappings in Nigeria, sectarian conflict, the tribal conflicts — to see that we have not yet extinguished man’s darkest impulses. There are some bad stories out there that are being told to children, and they’re learning to hate early. They’re learning to fear those who are not like them early.
And none of the tragedies that we see today may rise to the full horror of the Holocaust — the individuals who are the victims of such unspeakable cruelty, they make a claim on our conscience. They demand our attention, that we not turn away, that we choose empathy over indifference and that our empathy leads to action. And that’s not always easy. One of the powerful things about Schindler’s story was recognizing that we have to act even where there is sometimes ambiguity; even when the path is not always clearly lit, we have to try.
Gregg Chadwick
Sins of Our Fathers
72"x72" oil on linen 1990

And that includes confronting a rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world. We’ve seen attacks on Jews in the streets of major Western cities, public places marred by swastikas. From some foreign governments we hear the worst kinds of anti-Semitic scapegoating. In Ukraine, as Steven mentioned, we saw those disgusting pamphlets from masked men calling on Jews to register. And tragically, we saw a shooting here at home, in Overland Park in Kansas.
And it would be tempting to dismiss these as isolated incidents, but if the memories of the Shoah survivors teach us anything, it is that silence is evil’s greatest co-conspirator. And it’s up to us — each of us, every one of us — to forcefully condemn any denial of the Holocaust. It’s up to us to combat not only anti-Semitism, but racism and bigotry and intolerance in all their forms, here and around the world. It’s up to us to speak out against rhetoric that threatens the existence of a Jewish homeland and to sustain America’s unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security. (Applause.) And it is up to us to search our own hearts — to search ourselves — for those stories that have no place in this world. Because it’s easy sometimes to project out and worry about others and their hatreds and their bigotries and their blind spots. It’s not always as easy for us to examine ourselves.
Standing up to anti-Semitism is not simply about protecting one community or one religious group. There is no such thing as “targeted” hatred. In Overland Park, a man went to a Jewish Community Center and a nursing home named “Village Shalom” and started shooting — and none of the people he murdered were Jewish. Two were Methodist. One was Catholic. All were innocent.
We cannot eliminate evil from every heart, or hatred from every mind. But what we can do, and what we must do, is make sure our children and their children learn their history so that they might not repeat it. (Applause.) We can teach our children the hazards of tribalism. We can teach our children to speak out against the casual slur. We can teach them there is no “them,” there’s only “us.” And here in America, we can celebrate a nation in which Christians and Muslims go to Jewish community centers, and where Jews go to Church vigils — a nation where, through fits and starts, through sacrifice and individual courage, we have struggled to hear the truth and live out the truth that Dr. King described — that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, that we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
By keeping the memories alive, by telling stories, by hearing those stories, we can do our part to fulfill the mitzvah, the commandment of saving a life. I think of Pinchas Gutter, a man who lived through the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and survived the Majdanek death camp. Today he serves as a volunteer educator at the Shoah Foundation. “I tell my story,” he says, “for the purpose of improving humanity, drop by drop by drop. Like a drop of water falls on a stone and erodes it, so, hopefully, by telling my story over and over again I will achieve the purpose of making the world a better place to live in.”
Those are the words of one survivor — performing that “sacred duty” of memory — that will echo throughout eternity. Those are good words for all of us to live by.
I have this remarkable title right now — President of the United States — and yet every day when I wake up, and I think about young girls in Nigeria or children caught up in the conflict in Syria — when there are times in which I want to reach out and save those kids — and having to think through what levers, what power do we have at any given moment, I think, “drop by drop by drop,” that we can erode and wear down these forces that are so destructive; that we can tell a different story.
And because of your work — because of your work, Steven, and the work of all who supported you — our children, and their children, and their children’s children will hear from the survivors, but they’ll also hear from the liberators, the Righteous Among the Nations. And because of your work, their stories, years and decades from now, will still be wearing down bigotry, and eroding apathy, and opening hearts, drop by drop by drop.
And as those hearts open, that empowers those of us in positions of power — because even the President can’t do these things alone. Drop by drop by drop. That’s the power of stories. And as a consequence, the world will be a better place and the souls will be bound up in the bonds of eternal life. Their memories will be a blessing and they will help us make real our solemn vow: Never Forget. Never Again.
So thank you, Steven, for your incredible work. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. Thank you.

Monday, May 05, 2014

Mulholland Blue in the 50th Anniversary Pasadena Showcase House of Design


Gregg Chadwick
Mulholland Blue
24"x30" oil on linen 2014 


Currently, my painting Mulholland Blue is hanging in the 50th Anniversary Pasadena Showcase House of Design in a wonderful room designed by Ederra Design Studio's Cynthia Lambakis and Samantha Williams. Standing on Mulholland above Los Angeles, a blurred trio contemplates the mystery of existence. Does the woman in the green dress meet her double and the memory of her lover? Or has time allowed past, present and future to coalesce?


The Pasadena Showcase runs from April 13– May 11, 2014


Great seeing this original work by one of our artists, Gregg Chadwick, at the Pasadena !

It's a beauty!

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Eleanor Schapa On Ederra Design

Thanks to MaryLinda Moss for making all this possible!

Saturday, May 03, 2014

Oracle of Milan

by Gregg Chadwick 

Oracle of Milan
40"x30" oil on linen 2014

 Oracle of Milan is the first in an upcoming series of time lapse videos that document the stages and alterations inherit in my painting process. The first impression is key in the formation of an artwork and the opening frames of the video show that something dynamic is present in this new painting. I allow the painting to speak to me with visual clues that lead to new paths. Oracle of Milan was begun in June 2013. Over the past year, I have added and subtracted figures, colors, and elements to arrive at the last frames of the video which show the painting today. Is it finished? Is anything ever finished? Only time will tell. 

 The video is backed by The National's haunting song England, which has been on a National heavy playlist that has played throughout my painting sessions for Oracle of Milan.