Saturday, September 23, 2017

Take a Knee

"... I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world." - Jackie Robinson, 1972















New Biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson





“Walter Isaacson is at once a true scholar and a spellbinding writer. And what a wealth of lessons are to be learned in these pages.” —David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Walter Isaacson, author of a new biography of Leonardo da Vinci, discusses the Renaissance genius' wildly eclectic notebooks that contained everything from landscape sketches to math equations to 'to do' lists.

For more about
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson http://ow.ly/cHwn30d8Yrg

Book available for purchase at Amazon and Powell's


Also by Walter Isaacson
Steve Jobs

Einstein

Benjamin Franklin

The Innovators

Friday, September 22, 2017

Jhene Aiko's new album! Listen to 'Trip' here




"Laced with 22 tracks, Trip shreds the public's perception of Aiko and allows everyone to walk into the life of Penny, a nickname she was given by her great-grandfather when she was a child. For the first time, Aiko gives listeners a front row seat and allows them to watch her undergo a whirlwind of emotions, including love, pain, depression and, ultimately, triumph."
- Carl Lamarre, Billboard




RIP Miyagi! 

Saturday, September 16, 2017

What A Night!

by Gregg Chadwick

Sergio meets Sergio!
Thanks to everyone who came out to the Santa Monica Art Studios last night to see my exhibit Luchador's Dream which was inspired by the incomparable Sergio Arau.


Saturday, September 09, 2017

Please Join Me at Art & Home 2017: a Benefit for LA Family Housing

by Gregg Chadwick


Gregg Chadwick
Generation Pink
14”x11” oil on panel 2017

 Generation Pink, inspired by the Women's March held on January 21, 2017, will be exhibited at Art & Home 2017: a benefit for LA Family Housing - hosted by Room & Board in Culver City. 

Along with around 750,000 others, I marched with my family and friends in Los Angeles to show the world that we stand for love, inclusion, diversity, and social justice. Generation Pink is part of a series of paintings exploring the Women's March and the continuing protests in this volatile time. As an artist, I often use my creations as a sort of reflecting device that mirrors and focuses attention on social and political change. As Marvin Gaye sang so poignantly- “What’s going on.” 

 In collaboration with Angeleno magazine, please join us for a special art show at Room & Board in Culver City on September 13, 2017.
Over 100 local, contemporary artists have donated artworks in support of LA Family Housing. (LAFH).
Dedicated to helping families and individuals transition out of homelessness and poverty, LAFH offers a range of housing opportunities enriched with supportive services.

Artwork on display in the showroom will be available for purchase for $400!
If you have always wanted a Chadwick, this is a wonderful opportunity to get an artwork at an affordable price and to support an important cause.

Please RSVP at https://lafh.org/artandhome

Wednesday, September 13 at 7 PM - 9 PM
Room & Board
8707 Washington Blvd, Culver City, California 90232


More at:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1864796443838619/
https://lafh.org/


Don't forget my recent Clark Hulings Fund podcast with Daniel DiGriz.

Friday, September 08, 2017

You Are Invited - Sept 15, 2017 : Luchador’s Dream - Inspired by Sergio Arau (New Paintings by Gregg Chadwick)

by Gregg Chadwick



Gregg Chadwick
Flor De Asfalto (for Sergio Arau)
56”x86” oil on linen 2017




With his music, words and images, Sergio Arau has inspired me to create a series of paintings that feature him as the main character in my painted movies. Rock Star, actor, director, screenwriter, and artist Sergio Arau has often performed while wearing gear honoring Mexico's most famous wrestling star El Santo (The Man In the Silver Mask). Known as lucha libre, Mexican wrestlers such as El Santo are defenders of the poor and vulnerable. By taking on the persona of the Luchador (wrestler), Josh Kun writes in Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, Sergio Arau and his bands have mixed "the traditional with the contemporary, the rural with the urban, the American with the Mexican, the charro with the rockero." 

My paintings in Luchador's Dream carry Sergio Arau into a Los Angeles seemingly pulled from the lyrics of his songs or gathered from scenes of his films that were left on the cutting room floor. 

Gracias Sergio!


The exhibition runs from September 7 - October 7, 2017

(Luchador's Dream is, in true rock n' roll fashion, a completely unaffiliated, and unofficial satellite exhibition of 2017: Año de México en Los Ángeles / Mexico in Los Angeles 2017)


What: Luchador’s Dream - Inspired by Sergio Arau (New Paintings by Gregg Chadwick)

Where: La Galería de la Cocina - Santa Monica Art Studios, 3026 Airport Ave. SM 90405 
When:  Opening - September 15, 2017, 6:00pm - 8:00pm



Happy International Literacy Day!


Thursday, September 07, 2017

Happy 100th Birthday Jacob Lawrence!

by Gregg Chadwick



100 years ago today, the seminal artist Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. When Lawrence was in his teens his family moved to Harlem in New York City, where he studied art with Charles Alston at the Harlem Art Workshop.

When Lawrence graduated from the American Artists School in New York he became a participant in the WPA Federal Art Project.  The young artist broke new ground in 1941 with The Migration Series which garnered national attention.



I find the video below from the Phillips Collection in which Lawrence discusses The Migration Series fascinating:



During World War II, while in the United States Coast Guard, first as a public relations specialist on the USS Sea Cloud, and then as a combat artist on the USS Gen. Richardson, Lawrence created a series of artworks documenting his vantage point on the war.

 
Jacob Lawrence
No. 2 Control Panel, Nerve Center of Ship,
gouache and watercolor on board
Collection USCG Museum
Shipmates and Jacob Lawrence with one of the paintings
he made while serving in the US Coast Guard during WWII.


After the war Lawrence was invited by Josef Albers to teach painting at Black Mountain College. Lawrence's exposure to Albers’ Bauhaus-inspired theories and teaching methods greatly influenced his artistic explorations.  Lawrence wrote, “When you teach, it stimulates you; you’re forced to crystallize your own thinking … you’re forced to formalize your own theories so that you may communicate them to the students … you go back to your studio and think about this again.”


Faculty of the 1946 Black Mountain College Summer Art Institute,
including Jacob Lawrence and his wife Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center collection


In 1949, Lawrence  and his wife Gwendolyn returned to New York where Lawrence continued to paint. Lawrence, aware of his depression, checked himself into Hillside Hospital in Queens, where he stayed for 11 months and painted as an inpatient.



Jacob Lawrence
Depression
Tempera and Watercolor on Paper  1950
22 3/4"x31"

Whitney Museum



 After many years in New York, in 1970 Lawrence and Knight moved to Seattle when he was invited to teach at the University of Washington. Lawrence was an art professor at UW until his retirement in 1986.  He continued painting until just a few weeks before his death in June 2000 at the age of eighty-two. Lawrence's last commissioned public work, the mosaic mural New York in Transit, was installed in October 2001 in the Times Square subway station in New York City.

 Lawrence's powerful artworks grace numerous collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum. The vibrant paintings of Jacob Lawrence tell stories of liberation, resistance, and resilience.

More:
Why the Works of Visionary Artist Jacob Lawrence Still Resonate a Century After His Birth





Saturday, September 02, 2017

Don't Miss Your Chance to Enroll In Health Insurance for 2018


Trump cynically cut Obamacare outreach by 90% so that Americans won't know these dates.
It is up to us to spread this critical information.
Folk's lives depend upon it.

November 1, 2017:
Enrollment for 2018 health insurance begins.

December 15, 2017:
Enrollment for 2018 health insurance ends.


Please share enrollment deadlines for health insurance.