For Alex Eliot on his Passing - "Oriste!"

“Life is a fatal adventure. It can only have one end. So why not make it as far-ranging and free as possible?” Alexander Eliot

I received the sad news yesterday that my dear friend, art writer and mythologist, Alex Eliot passed away. Born April 28, 1919, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Alex would have turned 97 this week. Alex was the art editor at Time Magazine from 1945 until 1960. During those years Alex crafted numerous articles about the modern art scene. Alex always held us spellbound with tales of meeting the major artists of the period. Alex especially loved to tell the story of meeting Salvador Dali in New York and that Dali became a close friend because Jane Winslow, Eliot’s wife, had lived in Catalonia and spoke Dali’s native Catalan fluently. 

For his 90th birthday, Alex's talented daughter, the writer Winslow Eliot, asked me to craft an appreciation of Alex. I have revamped this essay a bit to reflect on his passing:

In Alex Eliot's marvelous essay in Frederick Franck's book, What Does it Mean to be Human?, Alex recounts his journey to the Greek region of Karoulia and his encounter with the "very holy fellow" Simon. Like many of his fellow Orthodox monks from Mount Athos, Simon retired to a cliff side residence in Karoulia. Perched high above the water, these monks spend their later years in solitude with the meeting of the sea and sky as their constant companion.

Alex was invited by a fisherman from Mount Athos, who spoke of Simon as a holy fellow, to make the journey with him by sea to visit the monk. With the fisherman's boat bobbing in the waves below, Alex climbed a series of steps carved into the rock face with only a series of chains spiked into the cliff to hold onto. The fisherman had said, "If those chains will hold you, it is as God wills" for Alex to meet with Simon. At the end of his climb, Alex explains that he lay drenched in sweat, gasping like a beached fish until he felt a cool shadow break the heat and there was Simon, "sparkling eyed" with his arms spread wide, exclaiming "Oriste!" meaning "Welcome, what can I do for you!"



Forgive me if I break Alex's engaging narrative at this point. As I write these words, I am sitting in my studio surrounded by a series of new paintings inspired by a recent trip with my family to Japan. The siren of these images is calling me. And I can't help but wonder what Alex and Jane Eliot, who also traveled with their family to Japan, will think of this new work. I don't have to risk my life scaling a cliff to reach the Eliots. I just need to make my pilgrimage out my studio door and down Ocean Park Boulevard, Diebenkorn's old haunts, to Venice, California to visit this couple who always greet my friends and family with wide open arms and profound insights. Like Simon's greeting, Alex Eliot's welcoming words nourish and inspire me.

Alex Eliot and Gregg Chadwick at the Getty Museum Malibu

Alex Eliot turned 90 on April 28, 2009. In his fruitful life, Alex met with and wrote about the great artists of his age, including Picasso and Matisse. One might think it would only be natural for a man of such wisdom and experience to be a bit haughty. Instead, Alex shares the old monk Simon's gentle and generous spirit as well as his great wisdom and love for life.

While on that cliff in Karoulia, Simon offered Alex a piece of caramel candy. Alex, graciously accepted the gift and then when the monk was preoccupied, Alex, feeling that the seemingly undernourished monk needed all the calories he could get, slipped it under Simon's plate. Alex then bowed and scooted out to climb down the cliff to the boat waiting below. The sun was setting when Alex reached the fisherman who lay asleep in the boat. The sirens called. Alex disrobed and dove into the sea only to be startled by a basket hurtling down the old monk's supply cable which linked his aerie to the world. In the basket was the caramel. "My candy had come back! I put the caramel straight into my mouth and like a child once more I tasted its burnt sugar elixir right down to my toes."

And then Alex opens up to the mythosphere - "Never before in this life, possibly, had my poor spirit taken nourishment. I stood dripping upon the shore of time and Simon waved to me from eternity."

Like Simon's candy, Alex Eliot's friendship gives my poor spirit nourishment.

Let me break again from my essay to speak directly to Alex:

Alex, I thank you for your wisdom, your profound words and feelings, the inspired love that you show to your wife - Jane - and your talented children. Alex - you are a lifeline, an example, and a challenge. I am proud to be your friend. 

Gregg Chadwick

Study for a Portrait of Alex Eliot 

8"x13" oil on wood 2009

Throughout my years as I stand with my wife, MarySue, and my kid, Cassiel, on the shore of time I will see Alex and Jane Eliot waving to me from eternity and exclaiming, "Oriste!"

Alex and Jane Eliot
photo courtesy Winslow Eliot

More at:
Alex Eliot's Website
Jane Winslow Eliot's Website

In Memory of Kurt Cobain - Nirvana MTV Unplugged REHEARSAL - Full

21 years on and so poignant. Depression is so misunderstood. It is my fervent hope that the stigma surrounding depression will recede in the near future. The National Institute of Health has an informative site -

"Most likely, depression is caused by a combination of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors.

Depressive illnesses are disorders of the brain. Brain-imaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), have shown that the brains of people who have depression look different than those of people without depression. The parts of the brain involved in mood, thinking, sleep, appetite, and behavior appear different. But these images do not reveal why the depression has occurred. They also cannot be used to diagnose depression.

Some types of depression tend to run in families. However, depression can occur in people without family histories of depression too. Scientists are studying certain genes that may make some people more prone to depression. Some genetics research indicates that risk for depression results from the influence of several genes acting together with environmental or other factors. In addition, trauma, loss of a loved one, a difficult relationship, or any stressful situation may trigger a depressive episode. Other depressive episodes may occur with or without an obvious trigger."

Turquoise and Rose - In Memory of Deah Barakat and Yusor & Razan Abu-Salha

Gregg Chadwick 
Turquoise and Rose 
6"x6" oil on panel 2015

There is a vigil tonight at 7pm to honor Deah Barakat and Yusor & Razan Abu-Salha, the Muslim students murdered by a ruthless gunman in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Most Common Type of American Terrorist Is a White Man With a Weapon and a Grudge http://thenat.in/1AYnY3a  @thenation

 

The three Muslim students tragically killed in the #ChapelHillShooting lived to help others http://on.mash.to/1ChAwOu 

 

The Hill ‏@thehill  2m2 minutes ago

Father of Muslim students killed in #ChapelHillShooting: "This was a hate crime." http://ow.ly/IU36v 

Aristotle With The Bust of Homer - A Memoriam to Walter Liedtke

Rembrandt van Rijn
Aristotle With The Bust of Homer
56 1/2" x 53 3/4" oil on canvas 1653
Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

With the sad news that Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Walter Liedtke was killed in this week's horrible rail crash in New York, posting his powerfully narrated web episode of 82nd & 5th: "The Choice", for me, helps keep this wonderful man's passion for Rembrandt alive. Below is the  Metropolitan Museum of Art's label text for Aristotle With The Bust of Homer:

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) rests his hand reflectively on a bust of Homer, the blind epic poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey. A medallion representing Alexander the Great, whom Aristotle tutored, hangs from the heavy gold chain. The philosopher contemplates material rewards as opposed to spiritual values, with the play of light and shadow on his features suggesting the motions of his mind. Painted for the great Sicilian collector Antonio Ruffo, the picture also refers to Aristotle's comparison of touch and sight as a means of acquiring knowledge.

The Observer posted a link to Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas P. Campbell's statement on  Instagram, with an image of Rembrandt’s Aristotle With The Bust of Homer that was featured in an episode of the museum’s web series “82nd and Fifth,” narrated by Liedtke:

"Walter Liedtke, killed last night in the train crash at Valhalla. Walter was one of the preeminent scholars of Dutch and Flemish painting, whose contribution to the field lives on in a range of scholarly and popular publications. Here, a still from Rembrandt’s “Aristotle with the Bust of Homer” about which Walter memorably spoke in his recent “82nd and Fifth” webisode."

Walter Liedtke, Curator, Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photo Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Santa Barbara Elegy

Gregg Chadwick
Buddha of the Adriatic
24"x18" oil on linen 2014

My heart breaks for the families who have lost their daughters and sons during this weekend's senseless massacre in Santa Barbara. There is so much to discuss, to argue over, to ponder. But tonight, I will continue to mourn and ask that attention be focused on the six University of California, Santa Barbara students who were stolen from us.

Nelson Mandela 1918 - 2013

New York City Man - Lou Reed

by Gregg Chadwick

"Lou Reed gave us the street and the landscape - and we peopled it."
 - David Bowie in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"

Well hey, man, that's just a lie
It's a lie she tells her friends
'Cause the real song, the real song
Where she won't even admit to herself
The beatin' in her heart
It's a song lots of people know
It's a painful song
A little sad truth
But life's full of sad songs
Penny for a wish
But wishin' won't make you a soldier.
With a pretty kiss for a pretty face
Can't have it's way

Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay
 - From the beginning of the "Slipaway" section of Lou Reed's song Street Hassle.
    Uncredited spoken vocals by Bruce Springsteen.

Annie Leibovitz
Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson 
Coney Island, New York, 1995
Silver Print

When I found out about Lou Reed's death yesterday morning from Rolling Stone's twitter feed I turned to my Lou Reed playlist and put Reed's cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson's haunting blues number - See That My Grave is Kept Clean along with Antony and the Johnsons' song with Lou Reed - Fistful of Love, and Reed's elegiac urban hymn Berlin, on repeat. 

For many of us who came of age and under the influence of the New York City of the 1970's and 1980's, Lou Reed was New York. While at NYU working on my grad degree in art, Reed's music provided an aural map for my explorations across the city. Reed's staccato talk/singing proved to be a gruff yet tender guided tour through my artistic and lovelorn ventures. Often while on the A train, Marty Fogel's Junior Walker fueled sax riff on Reed's Shooting Star would blare in my walkman's headphones. And Walk on the Wild Side always seemed to accompany me across Washington Square. 

Gregg Chadwick
Ghosts of New Amsterdam
24"x36" oil on linen 2013

Reed's urban suite New York kept me close to the city I loved even as I moved west to California. On a trip back to Manhattan a few years later, a friend who had opened a restaurant in the Village told me that she thought that she had been given a sign that she would make it, because Lou Reed was becoming a regular at her joint. 

Not long after, Reed and his song Why Can't I be Good rumbled across the screen in Wim Wenders' cinematic sequel to Wings of Desire - Far Away So Close. Lou Reed's future wife, performance artist, composer and musician Laurie Anderson, also provided powerful music for the film. On a recent artistic excursion to Berlin, memories of these two films and Reed's album Berlin brought to light elements of the city that I had missed in the past. 




 


Much like an author will write about an event or a place to learn what they feel, I will create a series of artworks to understand what I have seen. I pushed my interaction with Berlin into a recent ongoing series of monotypes fueled partly by the visions of Lou Reed, Wim Wenders, Bertolt Brecht, and David Bowie, 

Gregg Chadwick
Brecht's Song
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

As Gavin Edwards wrote in Rolling Stone,"While many musicians have made Berlin albums, Lou Reed's Berlin (1973) is the wrist-slashing standard against which they're all judged. When the record concluded with the epic ballad Sad Song, it felt like the whole world was shutting down." Berlin forces us to wrestle with the dead as we walk through its haunted and enchanted streets. After the fall of the wall, Berlin has come to embody the future while at the same time carrying the scars of the past. In the city of Berlin, the political and the personal merge, as evidenced in Lou Reed's Berlin album and David Bowie's recent song Where Are We Now?. In Berlin we are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age and die, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade. 

Gregg Chadwick
Rauch Licht (Smoke Light)
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

During the last years of his life, Lou Reed continued to work with and inspire younger musicians and artists. One of the most fruitful of these mentorship/collaborations was his work with Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons. John Hodgman in the New York Times recounts how the cover image of Antony's EP, I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy "caught the attention of the producer Hal Willner, who bought the EP and played it for Lou Reed, with whom he was working at the time:

'I said, 'Who is that?' Reed recalled. 'So we set out to find him, and he was a few blocks away as it turns out.' ''

Lou Reed invited Antony to tour with him throughout 2003, and every night Antony would sing Candy Says, Reed's haunting tribute to Candy Darling. Caught in the video below, Lou Reed, one of the most influential musicians of the rock era, looks across towards Antony with an expression of pride and wonder. Lou seems mesmerized by what he described as Antony's double tracking and unusual harmonies. Reed had said that he could listen to Antony sing all day. In this video we witness a legend passing on his wisdom and inspiration to another.



Antony and Lou Reed Perform Candy Says



More Videos Below:



Lou Reed & David Bowie Discuss Reed's Album Transformer
 in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1989, Lou Reed explained that he and Bruce Springsteen were both recording albums at the Record Plant in New York City when an engineer suggested inviting Bruce over to record the "Slipaway" vocals on Reed's song Street Hassle. The last line was Reed's, written with Springsteen's Born to Run in mind:

Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay


More at:
Lou Reed: The Rolling Stone Interview
Antony Finds His Voice

  
Lou Reed greets Chuck Close in front of Close's 2012 tapestry Lou 

    published by Magnolia Editions; photo by Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

August 2013

Ruth Asawa

In Memoriam - Ruth Asawa in her studio, 1969

(via Community of Creatives)

Sad to hear the news that artist Ruth Asawa passed away yesterday. 

Maurice Sendak: An Artist In Love With the World and the Things That Go Bump in the Night

by Gregg Chadwick

“Dear Mr. Sendak,  How much does it cost to get to where the wild things are? If it is not expensive, my sister and I would like to spend the summer there.”

 -From a letter sent by an eight year old reader to Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak
 Where the Wild Things Are
Pen and ink and watercolor on paper  1963

Maurice Sendak was an artist in love with the world and with things that go bump in the night. Sendak looked deeply at the world around him. His vision included the visible nature of  our existence and the invisible, but no less real, world of dreams. Sendak's beautifully crafted artworks for his books began with simple pencil sketches that were then enlarged and fleshed out with pen and ink which was then layered with glowing watercolor washes. 

The finished paintings on paper reflect what Dave Eggers described in a Vanity Fair article on Sendak as the "unhinged and chiaroscuro subconscious of a child." Sendak's books and images appealed to readers of all ages. Sendak took the deep mysteries of life head-on and allowed us all to journey to where the wild things are.

 In an interview with Terry Gross in September 2011, Maurice Sendak reflected on his mortality and the transient nature of life in general:

"Yes. I'm not unhappy about becoming old. I'm not unhappy about what must be. It makes me cry only when I see my friends go before me and life is emptied. I don't believe in an afterlife, but I still fully expect to see my brother again. And it's like a dream life. I am reading a biography of Samuel Palmer, which is written by a woman in England. I can't remember her name. And it's sort of how I feel now, when he was just beginning to gain his strength as a creative man and beginning to see nature. But he believed in God, you see, and in heaven, and he believed in hell. Goodness gracious, that must have made life much easier. It's harder for us nonbelievers.

But, you know, there's something I'm finding out as I'm aging that I am in love with the world. And I look right now, as we speak together, out my window in my studio and I see my trees and my beautiful, beautiful maples that are hundreds of years old, they're beautiful. And you see I can see how beautiful they are. I can take time to see how beautiful they are. It is a blessing to get old. It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music. You know, I don't think I'm rationalizing anything. I really don't. This is all inevitable and I have no control over it."

We are fortunate that Maurice Sendak's love for beauty and the mystery of existence forged a unique vision that led to his magical books and images. He will be greatly missed.

Maurice Sendak
Outside Over There
Pen and ink and watercolor on paper 1978

Portrait of Maurice Sendak by Annie Leibovitz 

More at:

Maurice Sendak, Author of Splendid Nightmares, Dies at 83

Sendak on Sendak Exhibition 

Terry Gross Interview With Maurice Sendak - September 2011

The Last Waltz: Levon Helm Died Today

"We lost Levon at 1:30 today surrounded by friends and family and his musicians have visited him.
 As sad as this was, it was very peaceful."
- Larry Campbell, Levon Helm's guitarist and band leader


As a fitting send off for Levon Helm please watch The Band Perform "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" from Martin Scorsese's Film "The Last Waltz."
Rest in Peace Levon Helm!

More at:
Levon Helm Dies at 71

Trayvon Martin Tribute: Cruel World by Zone Fwey

A moving tribute to Trayvon Martin by Minneapolis based recording duo Zone Fwey.

Listen Here:


More at:
Zone Fwey

Feminist, Anti War and Pro LGBT Poet Adrienne Rich Dies at 82

Gregg Chadwick
To Talk About Trees
24" x 18" oil on linen 2012

What Kind of Times Are These

BY ADRIENNE RICH

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill

and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows

near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted

who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled

this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,

our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,

its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods

meeting the unmarked strip of light—

ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:

I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you

anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these

to have you listen at all, it's necessary

to talk about trees.

“What Kind of Times Are These”. © 2002, 1995 by Adrienne Rich, from The Fact of a Doorframe: Selected Poems 1950-2001 by Adrienne Rich. Used by permission of the author and W.W. Norton, Inc.
Source: Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995 (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1995)

Details at:

Feminist, Anti War and Pro LGBT Poet Adrienne Rich Dies at 82

Polish Poet Wisława Szymborska Died Today (1923-2012)

Jenny Holzer’s "For the Guggenheim" projected the words of
Wislawa Szymborska on the museum’s outdoor facade. (2008)
photo courtesy of Lili Holzer-Glier

Clouds

I’d have to be really quick
to describe clouds—
a split second’s enough
… for them to start being something else.

Their trademark:
they don’t repeat a single
shape, shade, pose, arrangement.

Unburdened by memory of any kind,
they float easily over the facts.

What on earth could they bear witness to?
They scatter whenever something happens.

Compared to clouds,
life rests on solid ground,
practically permanent, almost eternal.

Next to clouds
even a stone seems like a brother,
someone you can trust,
while they’re just distant, flighty cousins.

Let people exist if they want,
and then die, one after another:
clouds simply don’t care
what they’re up to
down there.

And so their haughty fleet
cruises smoothly over your whole life
and mine, still incomplete.

They aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re gone.
They don’t have to be seen while sailing on.

— Wisława Szymborska

(Translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh)

For the Guggenheim, 2008. Light projection. Guggenheim Museum, New York. 


Text: "The End and the Beginning," "Could Have," "Children of Our Age," "In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself," "The Joy of Writing," "Tortures," and "Parting with a View," from View with a Grain of Sand by Wisława Szymborska, translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh. © 1993 by Wisława Szymborska. 


English translation copyright © 1995 by Harcourt, Inc. Used/reprinted with permission of the author.


"Some People," from Poems New and Collected by Wisława Szymborska, translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh. © 1998 by Harcourt. Inc. Used/reprinted with permission of the author. © 2008 Jenny Holzer/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Helen Frankenthaler 1928-2011

by Gregg Chadwick

Helen Frankenthaler

Mountains and Sea

7' 2 5/8" x 9' 9 1/4" oil on canvas 1952

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

"Fashion and money, fame and power politics have played a part in all art worlds. You've just got to plug away.... I see a revival of the meaning of the word "quality"---a search for truth and beauty in lieu of stock certificates. People are most interested in what's real, what endures."

- Helen Frankenthaler (From a Conversation With Lee Rosenbaum)

Helen Frankenthaler's painting Mountains and Sea opened a painterly universe. She poured, dripped, and floated thinned oil paint directly onto an unprimed canvas, creating a stained surface in which the pigment spread into and throughout the canvas fibers. The painting is mesmerizing, like the open sea is mesmerizing. Color beckons almost like song. As viewers we take the role of Odysseus, some will remain tied to a mast - fighting the beauty and lyricism. Others, myself included, let Helen Frankenthaler's hand lead us into the unknown. 

She will be sorely missed. 

Helen Frankenthaler Painting

From a Series of Photographs by Ernst Haas Taken in 1969

Helen Frankenthaler Amidst Her Art in 1956

Photographer: Gordon Parks for LIFE Magazine

More at:
A Search for Truth and Beauty by Lee Rosenbaum

Helen Frankenthaler dies at 83; abstract painter