Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick Celluloid Dreams at the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan I woke up from a dream this morning that seemed to have been pulled from a Hayao Miyazaki film. In my dream a tender sapling reached towards the light as it sprouted from my wrist. Above, russet clouds moved in a cerulean sky. I look to my dreams as openings rather than fortunes. Yet, since I recently returned from Tokyo, I should remember that in Japan the first dreams of the New Year, hatsu-yume 初夢, traditionally provide markers for the dreamer's upcoming year. Hayao Miyazaki Sketch for Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) pencil and watercolor on paper 2001 (Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan) The vision and mystery of Hayao Miyazaki's work will surely provide inspiration for me throughout 2011. In December, I was fortunate to visit the Ghibli Museum which was created to feature the art and films of Hayao Miyazaki and also the breadth of animation done by Studio Ghibli since its founding in 1985 by fil...

From the curator: Murmurs New Paintings By Gregg Chadwick Artwalk Culver City 2010 “In Gregg Chadwick’s paintings there is an elegiac tone, a kind of nostalgia for a manifestation of the purely spiritual that most of us can never hope to attain. The paintings are truly captivating in that they invite us irresistibly into their spaces and hold the attention there in their swirl of light and color, suggesting inexhaustible depths of experience for the eye to explore.” -Peter Clothier It is my pleasure to feature Gregg Chadwick’s artwork to a growing audience at the Artwalk Culver City 2010. Chadwick’s vision is global and inclusive. The paintings in Murmurs encourage viewers to travel into their haunting beauty. Fittingly, within the past year Chadwick’s paintings have entered collections in Tokyo, Rio, Paris, and Amsterdam as well as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston. Chadwick is currently at work on paintings for a major exhibition slated to open in October 2010 at the Manifesta M...

Full text of President Obama's remarks, delivered at the White House on the passage of Health Care Reform. March 21, 2010 Good evening, everybody. Tonight, after nearly 100 years of talk and frustration, after decades of trying, and a year of sustained effort and debate, the United States Congress finally declared that America's workers and America's families and America's small businesses deserve the security of knowing that here, in this country, neither illness nor accident should endanger the dreams they've worked a lifetime to achieve. Tonight, at a time when the pundits said it was no longer possible, we rose above the weight of our politics . We pushed back on the undue influence of special interests. We didn't give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear. Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges. We proved that this government - a government of the people and by the people - still wor...

“This is the civil rights act of the 21st century,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House.

"We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear." (Martin Luther King, Jr.) An August Dream 18"x36" oil on linen 2009

Gregg Chadwick Kyoto: March (for Gary Snyder) 36"x48" oil on linen 2010 Kyoto: March BY GARY SNYDER A few light flakes of snow Fall in the feeble sun; Birds sing in the cold, A warbler by the wall. The plum Buds tight and chill soon bloom. The moon begins first Fourth, a faint slice west At nightfall. Jupiter half-way High at the end of night- Meditation. The dove cry Twangs like a bow. At dawn Mt. Hiei dusted white On top; in the clear air Folds of all the gullied green Hills around the town are sharp, Breath stings. Beneath the roofs Of frosty houses Lovers part, from tangle warm Of gentle bodies under quilt And crack the icy water to the face And wake and feed the children And grandchildren that they love.