Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick Happy New Year 2017! It’s raining this New Year’s Eve in Santa Monica. The haunting voice of Gil Scott-Heron singing  Winter In America  fills our living room. My thoughts trace a circuit from this moment back to an earlier New Year in Japan as 1989 rolled into 1990. I was in Tokyo following the spirit and artworks of Ando Hiroshige. That winter in Japan, I clutched a large volume by Henry D. Smith II and Amy G. Poster on Hiroshige’s  One Hundred Famous Views of Edo   and trekked on rail, foot and car across the historic core of what was Edo era Tokyo. Sponsored by the Nippon Seiyu-Kai's 30th Anniversary Award, I endeavored to create a series of new paintings inspired by Hiroshige’s woodcuts. Time, place, memory, mystery and lore all mixed in my artworks. Gregg Chadwick Passing View of Shohei Bridge  30"x24" oil on linen 1990  Today, on the Brooklyn museum’s Tumblr page, Alison Baldassano posted a phot...

Directed by Heid E. Erdrich, written and performed by Louise Erdrich, filmed and edited by Elizabeth Day, music by Trevino Brings Plenty ( trevinobringsplenty.com). Shot on the coldest and snowiest day of the year, "Advice to Myself 2: Resistance" presents a visual and verbal collaboration between author Louise Erdrich, her poet sister Heid E. Erdrich, and artist Elizabeth Day. A figure dressed as a bear moves through a frozen yet domestic landscape, at times using a blade to practice martial arts moves, at other times carrying a baby in a woven carrier. The She-bear’s movements juxtapose the voice of Louise Erdrich speaking a poem. Throughout the "poemeo" as Louise calls the form, the bear gives us clues to her indigenous identity in her jingle dress moves, her beaded mukluks, the willow baby basket she carries. The words of the poem offer a message of personal, political and universal resistance. In the last moments the bear's identity is revealed. Cate...

by Gregg Chadwick Hope that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We touched base with many of you during the past week and got a good dose of holiday cheer.  When asked what I am thankful for - I of course start with family and friends but just as importantly I am thankful for the wonderful diversity found in my home state of California and across the US. Childhood memories are entwined in our holiday traditions. Often, I think of my Dad's parents and the time we took a road trip deep into the South during the Civil Rights era. At a road stop somewhere along I95, in Georgia I think, my Grandma Chadwick saw me staring at a crude racist, epithet scrawled on a sign. She put her arm around me and said to me "Don't mind about those words. Those words aren't true. God loves everyone one of us - equally." It was one of the first and one of the best lessons about civil rights and equality that I have ever learned.  Watch The Snowy Day 1. The...