WhyHunger: Turn Hope Into Action

Nutritious Food is a Human Right. Through community-fueled solutions, grassroots support, and scaling out sustainable, agroecological food production, WhyHunger meets people’s immediate food needs with dignity while also building a movement to end hunger in the U.S. and around the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the hunger crisis, leaving nearly 54 million Americans and 2 billion people worldwide struggling to feed themselves. In the face of crisis and urgent need, there is still great hope that a healthy, just, and hunger-free world is possible. Together, we can turn hope into action.

——— Special Thanks to: Our Organizational Partners: Jesús Vázquez Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica de Puerto Rico Facebook: @organizacionboricua Twitter: @orgboricua Instagram: @organizacion_boricua Katrina Sanders, Judy Belue Delta Fresh Foods Initiative - Bolivar County, MS Facebook: @deltafreshfoods Joan Brady Farmer and advocate La Vía Campesina - Ontario, Canada Facebook: @viacampesinaOFFICIAL Twitter: @via_campesina Instagram: @la_via_campesina_official Niaz Dorry Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance National Family Farm Coalition – Gloucester, MA Facebook: @natlfamilyfarmcoalition Twitter: @FarmFamilyCo And Our Artist Partners: Bruce Springsteen Yoko Ono Lennon Carlos Santana Brandi Carlile Tom Morello Michael McDonald ——— Follow us on social media: Facebook http://www.Facebook.com/WhyHungerFans Twitter http://Twitter.com/WhyHunger Instagram http://Instagram.com/WhyHungerPix LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/whyh... Visit our website to learn more about WhyHunger's work and mission at http://www.whyhunger.org

Tonight! Art & Home: An Evening with LA Family Housing - October 26, 2016 7-9pm

Tonight!

My painting “Blush Response" will be available at

Art & Home: 

An Evening with Los Angeles Family Housing to benefit LA Family Housing.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016  7-9pm

    

Room & Board 

Helm's Bakery Building 

8707 Washington Boulevard, CA 90232

Gregg Chadwick

Blush Response

10"x10" oil on canvas 2015

In collaboration with Angeleno magazine, please join us for a special art show at Room & Board in Culver City. 

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 http://www.roomandboard.com//events/LAFH 

More at:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1094088290638897/

https://www.facebook.com/lafhonline

Rufus and Martha Wainwright's Christmas 101 at Royce Hall: A Holiday Tribute

by Gregg Chadwick

If this was the way the world ended on 12 21 12, those of us gathered at UCLA's Royce Hall for the second night of Rufus and Martha Wainwright's Christmas 101 were being ushered into eternity with heavenly voices. 

Rufus and Martha Wainwright, the son and daughter of  Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle - who passed away in 2010 from a rare sarcoma cancer, both possess extraordinary voices and mesmerizing stage presence. Their combined talents bolstered by musical kin and comrades, including Emmylou Harris, folk singer Maria Muldaur's daughter Jenni Muldaur, the legendary Van Dyke Parks, former Eels drummer Butch Norton, Sloan Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Carrie Fisher, Rufus' husband Jorn Weisbrodt, and more, brought holiday cheer and at times poignant retrospection to last night's concert.

Christmas 101 continues a concert tradition begun in 2005 by Kate McGarrigle and her sister Anna. As well as being musical events, the shows are star splashed fundraisers for the Kate McGarrigle Fund which supports cancer care and research at the McGill University Cancer Centre and the renowned teaching hospitals of McGill University in Montreal, including the McGill University Health Centre and the Jewish General Hospital. 

The evening opened with the traditional Christmas carol God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, as vocalists and musicians stretched across the stage beneath a bright blue scrim dusted with images of snowflakes. The hall overflowed with family history as if we had stepped into a McGarrigle/Wainwright Christmas reunion.  

Moving from tradition to contemporaneity, Rufus next crooned his searing ode to unconditional love - Spotlight on Christmas. Rufus' richly crafted lyrics use the Christmas story as a vehicle to examine inequality and consumerism:


People love the working man
Who does the best that he can
But don't forget all the horses and toys
Never could fix the poor little rich boys
People say they love the maid
Who sweats and toils just like a slave
But don't forget all the diamonds and pearls
Never could fix the poor little rich girls

You can measure it in blood
You can measure it in mud
Let us say for these twelve days
Put the measuring away

Cause it's Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on us

People love and people hate
People go and people wait
But, don't forget Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Once were a family poor but rich in hope, yeah
Don't forget Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Running from the law, King Herod had imposeth
And they were each one quite odd
And mensch, a virgin, and a God
But don't forget that what kept them aflow
Floating through the desert doesnt take a boat no
Don't forget that what kept them above
Is unconditional love

And, you can measure it in blood
You can measure it in mud
Let us say for these twelve days
Put the measuring away

Cause it's Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on us
And the spotlight's shining on Christmas
And the spotlight's shining on

People love the working man
Who does the best that he can
But, don't forget all the horses and toys
Never could fix the poor little rich boys


The mood shifted, as it would all night in what seemed a conscious reflection of holiday tensions amidst a world soaked in violence and injustice, as Rufus and Jenni Muldaur played wolf and mouse in Frank Loesser's seductive standard Baby, It's Cold Outside. 

Van Dyke Parks appeared almost as a white haired saint throughout the evening. His passion and musicianship lifted the music and took it into another realm, particularly when he strolled into the audience to play Royce Hall's thundering organ. 

Rufus and Martha Wainwright Perform at Christmas 101
Royce Hall, UCLA
December 21, 2012
photo courtesy @christmas_101

Lucy Wainwright Roche brought the house to tears with her poignant version of Joni Mitchell's River. Many of us remarked at intermission that Lucy's singing brought the haunting lyrics to the forefront:


It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river 
I could skate away on
But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river 
I could skate away on
I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I made my baby say goodbye

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

Van Dyke Parks and @WainBright killing it: Trois Anges
photo courtesy @christmas_101

Near the close of the first half of the night, Carrie Fisher delivered a hilariously ribald spoken word routine that LA Underground thought could have been titled “A Very Fisher Christmas.” Suffice to say, it included a riff on self pleasuring Christmas gifts for Grandma and daughter as well as memories of Fisher's childhood yule-tide holidays in Vegas.

Soon after, Rufus and Martha's aunt Sloan Wainwright shook Royce Hall with her gospel fueled Thank God It's Christmas, revving the evening into a communal celebration of birth, life, death and everything in between. 

Before the break, Rufus, Martha, family and friends gathered for a lovely rendition of  White Christmas, which smartly added a nod to the absence of African-Americans in the song's lyrics and the culture itself that many of the holiday tunes rose from.

Gigi warming up Royce Hall
photo courtesy @christmas_101

After intermission, three songs in particular commanded rapt attention. Emmylou Harris dedicated her rendition of O Little Town of Bethlehem to the children and the teachers gunned down in Newtown, Connecticut one week before. Harris' voice  quietly conveyed the fragility inherit in all our lives. She screamed "Enough!" in a whisper.

Later, Rufus asked for the mics and monitors to be turned off before he wafted into an a cappella rendition of the lovely Cantique de Noël - the original French version of O Holy Night. Wainwright's voice carried and echoed around Royce Hall, reminding me of the countless students, educators, politicians, and performers whose voices had also echoed in this room. 

Echoes of Royce Hall - 2008
photo by Gregg Chadwick

Martha Wainwright, brought the entire night home with her haunting singing of her mother's song Proserpina. This musical retelling of the Roman goddess Proserpina's tale was the last song Kate McGarrigle wrote. 

The myth recounts the abduction of the goddess Proserpina (or Persephone in Greek) by Pluto, the master of the underworld. Proserpina's mother Ceres, the goddess or mother of the earth, searched in vain for her daughter. Ceres lamented her vanished girl. Where had she gone? In time Ceres found a clue - a small belt dropped by her daughter in the abduction, but the fate of her daughter remained unknown. In anger, Ceres halted nature's growth. Plants withered and the world touched by her footprints turned to desert. Finally, to end Ceres wrath, Pluto who had hidden Proserpina in his underworld was forced by the other gods to set his abducted bride free. But a price was set. Proserpina could return for six months each year to her mother - Spring and Summer. But each year when the seasons change to Fall and Winter, Proserpina must return underground. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Proserpina

Before Martha sang Proserpina she remarked that she once thought that her mother, Kate, had written the song about her. That she was the lost daughter. But instead, Martha said that she has come to realize that the song was written by her mother about herself as she prepared to return to meet her own mother - Martha's Grandma. 

Martha carried the song last night in a rich plaintive voice. We were honored to hear her sing and be in the presence of such a remarkable musical family. 

The entire ensemble joined in on John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Happy Xmas (War Is Over) to provide a fitting ending to an inspirational evening.

Christmas 101 concludes with a final performance at Royce Hall tonight. I urge you to drop everything and attend. For me, this concert series perfectly embodies what the holidays should be all about.

Martha Wainwright and Van Dyke Parks at Royce Hall
photo courtesy @christmas_101

More:

Rufus & Martha Wainwright's Christmas 101   

Rufus and Martha Wainwright Host 'Christmas 101' in Oakland

Goodbye to UPS: Hello to FedEx and Independent Art Shippers

by Gregg Chadwick


I am often asked by fellow artists and gallerists about shipping art locally and internationally. As of today due to UPS' gross negligence in a guaranteed, i.e. expensive,  delivery, I will no longer use their services and I recommend that others shift their services elsewhere. 
I am heartbroken that my donation will most likely not be at  The 9th Annual Oak Grove Golf Classic 2011 & SO-CAL Chef Open  to benefit the Oak Grove Center for Education, Treatment and the Arts. When a company no longer guarantees their guarantee the little guy loses out. We need to stand together. #OccupyUPS anyone?


Please read the  Open Letter to UPS CEO Scott Davis:

Dear Scott Davis,

On November 11, 2011 while you were chatting on the radio how UPS works on a day when the USPS is closed, I found that because of a shortage of UPS workers my Guaranteed package was not delivered as promised to the Oak Grove Center for Education, Treatment and the Arts. 
The shipment contains an important artwork to be auctioned on Monday, November 14, 2011 at the The 9th Annual Oak Grove Golf Classic 2011 & SO-CAL Chef Open  for the benefit of Oak Grove's students. Many of the children have suffered physical and/or sexual abuse. Other are victims of violent traumas. The school effectively cares for children with social, emotional or behavioral challenges. 
When I was asked by Kevin Keller to donate an artwork for such an important cause, I didn't hesitate. I went through the time and expense of creating the artwork, framing the artwork and chose what I thought was a reliable service to deliver this gift of hope.
 I am shocked that UPS has failed me and will not even provide delivery on Saturday, November 12, 2011 - which will make it in time for the auction. 
Words can not express my disappointment. I spent most of Friday, November 11, 2011 on the phone and twitter with less than helpful UPS representatives - The first of which hung up on me instead of transferring my call to a supervisor. 
I paid just under $100 to have an insured and guaranteed delivery on November 11, 2011 by 4:30 pm. UPS failed in a major way. 
I have used UPS in the past for many shipments for my art business, but if this situation is not rectified before it is too late, I will take my business elsewhere.
I expect a prompt response.

With Great Disappointment,

Gregg Chadwick
www.greggchadwick.com

Gregg Chadwick

Along the Arno

22"x30" monotype on paper 2011

(Donated to the Oak Grove Center for Education, Treatment and the Arts to be auctioned at the The 9th Annual Oak Grove Golf Classic 2011 & SO-CAL Chef Open )

Current Location Unknown - On Hold in a UPS Processing Center 

This holiday season please give Oak Grove a call and give to an organization that protects and nurtures the most vulnerable.  


 For information, please contact:
Cheryl Lievsay at 951-677-5599 ext 2238 or cheryll@oakgrovecenter.org

On Oak Grove And What They Do:

Oak Grove is a nonprofit 24-hour residential and educational treatment center that serves 76 children who live on campus and an additional 80-90 day students who attend our nonpublic school day program. Oak Grove is located in Murrieta, Southwest Riverside County. Oak Grove also operates a second campus in Perris, Oak Grove at the Ranch, serving an additional 50 students. Children and youth are admitted with a variety of psychological, social, emotional, behavioral, medical and neurological problems with concurrent behavioral difficulties, school problems, family dysfunction and alcohol or substance abuse. Many of the children have suffered physical and/or sexual abuse, other traumas or experienced many other social, emotional or behavioral challenges.

We are licensed as a level 12 group home and have the additional distinction of being accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), as well as the non-public school on grounds having accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).

Oak Grove works with children and adolescents whose needs and problems can be quite complex. One of our greatest assets lies in the sophistication and experience level of a team of clinicians comprised of psychiatrists and licensed independent practitioners (MFT, LCSW, Psy. D), as well as our nursing staff, behavior intervention specialists, teachers, milieu and activities staff that together make up the Treatment Team.

Accreditations/Memberships/Licensure:

• Joint Commission of Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO)
• California State Department of Education Non-Public School Certification
• Western Association of Schools & Colleges (WASC)
• California Alliance for Children & Families
• Licensed by the State Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division
• http://www.OakGroveCenter.org/index.php?p=1

The Poet's Spring: Art/House 2011 for Habitat for Humanity

Gregg Chadwick
The Color of Wind
(Whispers of the Rail, The Petaled Road, Spring Departure)
30"x72" oil on linen 2011 (triptych)

"In the cherry blossom's shade
there's no such thing
as a stranger."
by Kobayashi Issa
(1763 - 1828)

"In Japanese Zen poetry, spring blossoms, particularly cherry blossoms, are often used as symbols for the simple, natural, unfolding springtime of enlightenment.

In the "shade" or, you might say, beneath the canopy of enlightenment, there is no longer any sense of separation. Nothing and no one is foreign to you. There is no such thing as a stranger."
- Ivan M. Granger

I am always honored to support Habitat for Humanity with my art. My donation this year reflects my interests in Japan and Japanese culture with my triptych The Color of Wind.


Whispers of the Rail
30"x24" oil on linen 2011


The Petaled Road
30"x24" oil on linen 2011


Spring Departure
30"x24" oil on linen 2011

Details on Art/House 2011 for Habitat for Humanity Below:

PLEASE JOIN US FOR
BUILDING HOPE THROUGH ART
BENEFITTING HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF GREATER LOS ANGELES

Art Event & Silent Auction
Wednesday, June 1, 2011

To preview art please visit: Art/House 2011 on flickr

7:00pm - 10:00pm RSVP Required: to RSVP please visit - Art/House 2011 Reservations

Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres will be served Music stylings by DJ Fat Albert Einstein
ARENA 1 GALLERY at SANTA MONICA ART STUDIOS
3026 Airport Avenue • Santa Monica, California 90405

For more information, call Patty Lee at 424.246.3178

Art for Japan at the Torrance Museum of Art

On Saturday, March 26, 2011 the Torrance Art Museum held a fundraiser for the Japanese Red Cross to help with the humanitarian needs of post-tsunami Japan. I donated my painting Illume for the cause. This oil painting of a young Buddhist monk, seemingly caught in the glow of prayer candles, resonates hope in mourning, acceptance and rebirth.


Gregg Chadwick
Illume
16"x20" oil on linen 2011



Ongoing until April 30, 2011 at the Torrance Museum of Art is the exhibition Gateway Japan curated by Yuko Wakaume, Ei Kibukawa, and Max Presneill.

More at:
Torrance Art Museum