"Thank you for this incredible journey.— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 28, 2016
Let’s keep it going.
God bless the United States of America!" —@POTUS https://t.co/pgv3aUXdle
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Gregg Chadwick Salish Sea 30"x24" oil on linen 2014 |
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| The Business of Fancydancing leads Gene Tagaban (Aristotle Joseph), Michelle St. John (Agnes Roth), and Evan Adams (Seymour Polatkin), with writer/director Sherman Alexie.photo by Lance Muresan Courtesy Washington State Magazine |
"Canoe Journey gatherings are rich in meaning and cultural significance. Canoe families travel great distances as their ancestors did and participating in the journey requires physical and spiritual discipline. At each stop, canoe families follow certain protocols, they ask for permission to come ashore, often in their native languages. At night in longhouses there is gifting, honoring and the sharing of traditional prayers, drumming, songs and dances. Meals, including evening dinners of traditional foods, are provided by the host nations.When Europeans began exploring the region, the tribes were used to meeting and welcoming strangers who arrived by boat. Sadly, the Europeans did not understand the hospitality culture of the coastal tribes as the tribes were displaced over the next two centuries. The canoe culture, as practiced by the Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest, had all but disappeared until the Canoe Journey events began to grow in the 90’s. Techniques of canoe making and use had largely vanished and fewer and fewer tribal people knew how to pull a traditional canoe. Now...a new tradition is well into the making and a cultural resurgence is underway."
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The Salish Sea is a 6,500 square mile ecosystem consisting of the Puget Sound Basin (US) and the Georgia Basin (Canada).
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"The Nisqually River Council’s Nisqually Watershed Stewardship Plan (NWSP) recognizes that community wellness is a key component of creating a sustainable watershed. We embrace the people who live in the Nisqually watershed, their sense of identity and responsibility that has existed for generations. Strong communities require, among other things, access to the arts and high community health indicators. Paddle to Nisqually represents a unique opportunity to highlight the many efforts the Nisqually Tribe makes to promote community wellness, including a culture free of drugs and alcohol, access to traditional and healthy foods, and close ties to Nisqually heritage."Looking back now on that day on the ferry, I see things through the veil of my painting and the complicated history of the region. There is an accumulation of memories gathered in this Salish Sea as the Wenatchee ferry carries its passengers towards their destination. How many canoes over the centuries have traversed this same path?
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Gregg Chadwick Ponte di Castelvecchio (Verona) 48"x36" oil on linen 2016 |
I look up from by book and peer down at the river's edge. In the reeds and shallows small fish chasing food dart where the current eddies. In this reverie, my mind creates stories - If Brodsky is right these pools hold time in stasis. If I had a long net, maybe I could dip into the water and pull out living memories. A motorcycle roaring by on the road behind me breaks the spell and I think of darker times. During the Allied advance in World War II up through the Italian boot, the occupying German army drew a do not pass line at Verona because of its major transportation links running north to Austria. This bridge beneath me, the Ponte di Castelvecchio, bears the scars of that conflict. Retreating Nazi forces blew the bridge up in 1945. After the war, the pieces were collected and reformed into the bridge's current form. Time shapes all."I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is. Perhaps this idea was even of my own manufacture, but now I don't remember. In any case, I always thought that if the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water, the water was bound to reflect it. Hence my sentiment for water, for its folds, wrinkles, and ripples, and – as I am a Northerner – for its grayness. I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year's Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to find myself near water, preferably near a sea or an ocean, to watch the emergence of a new helping, a new cupful of time from it. I am not looking for a naked maiden riding on a shell; I am looking for either a cloud or the crest of a wave hitting the shore at midnight. That, to me, is time coming out of water, and I stare at the lace-like pattern it puts on the shore, not with a gypsy-like knowing, but with tenderness and with gratitude."
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Gregg Chadwick Study for Il Sole nella Pioggia : Ponte Castelvecchio Verona oil on canvas 2015 private collection - Verona, Italy photo taken at Via Filippini Studio, Verona, Italy 2015 |
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Gregg Chadwick's Via Filippini Studio, Verona, Italy 2015 |
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Giorgione Banner with Detail of The Tempest Venice, Italy 2010 |
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Under the Gun Film Poster Reflected in Window at Premiere in Beverly Hills, CAMay 3, 2016 photo by Gregg Chadwick |
, Michael Shermer's The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People
, and the Dalai Lama's Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World
. These three volumes begin with the premise that global violence on an historical timeline is not increasing and that humanity is generally good. As Melissa and I talked about - turn the nightly news on, or scan the latest headlines on your iPhone, and it would seem that the world grows uglier each day. Pinker's book successfully argues that the past was a much more brutal time. Shermer argues that because of the Enlightenment, thinkers consciously applied the methods of science to morally solve social struggles and that again, on an historical timeline, humanity is in the most moral period in history. The Dalai Lama makes it clear in Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World that an individual does not have to be religious to be ethical. Love and compassion are necessities for living. Compassion expresses deep sensitivity to the sufferings of others and a fierce drive to help alleviate those sufferings. Compassion is also the realization that we - human beings, animals, and the earth itself - are all interconnected."I know that we MUST respond. We must respond with a show of force equal to the violence and tragedies, with love force. Mercy force. Un-negotiated compassion force. Crazy care-giving to the poor and suffering, including ourselves."And we must continue to paint, to write, to dance, to sing. To value creation over destruction.
