Speed of Life

“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 pass...

Gregg Chadwick Gorgonize (Medusa) from Wordcatcher Just hitting bookstores is my latest collaborative work with Phil Cousineau, Wordcatcher . Phil and I share a love of art and language and this latest book combines Phil's marvelous word histories with my artworks inspired by the word tales. Phil Cousineau and I often work collaboratively. For Wordcatcher I created 25 images inspired by Phil's intriguing descriptions. I spent much of the Fall in my drawing studio with my hands and clothing covered in chalk dust with the smell of wood shavings and sepia inks in the air. The resulting artworks are mainly rendered in ink washes with black and sanguine chalks heightened with white chalk on paper. Gregg Chadwick Duende (Federico Garcia Lorca in Havana) from Wordcatcher Wordcatcher is already garnering praise: “Stake out a claim next to the standard dictionary you use for this less pedantic companion. It contains fewer words but sends up Fourth of July skyrockets on all of them...

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 be...