The Art of Labor

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.“

— Republican President Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress, December 3, 1861

Labor Day, 1942

by Charles Henry Alston,

 the first African American supervisor for the WPA Federal Art Project

Today, in honor of Labor Day in the United States, Denise Oliver Velez posted a moving tribute to work and workers on the Daily Kos. Inspired by the words, images and music that Velez put together, I have spent much of this Labor Day in deep consideration of the struggle and sacrifice of the brave laborers who worked together to build this country. 

Peter Clothier on his site, Vote Obama 2012, has also been considering the meaning of this holiday. Clothier writes:

"How much thought, I wonder, do most of us who celebrate Labor Day with a trip to the beach, a late summer barbecue in the park, a hike in the mountains--how much thought do we give to the actual reason for the holiday: to celebrate the contribution of the American worker?

Since Ronald Reagan faced down the air traffic controllers in 1981, it has been downhill all the way for unions in this country.  Republican governors like Scott Walker of Wisconsin feel free to use their powers to disempower the unions that champion the rights of teachers and other public workers, and the corporate powers-that-be wage a vigorous war against unions with everything in their arsenal, including their formidable army of lobbyists, their purchase of legislators through contributions to campaign funds and their "super pacs."  The result is a weakening of the unions that contributed significantly in the last century to the creation of the great American middle class, and diminishment of the middle class itself."

Peter Clothier goes on to send us a dire warning: 

"With the disempowerment of the unions, the American worker is deprived of the most basic tool to seek that upward mobility of which the country has long been justifiably proud.  Along with continually increasing cuts in state and federal education budgets, this assures the creation of a permanent, and to many inescapable underclass and the further enrichment of those who profit from their plight."

Gold Is Where You Find It

1934Tyrone ComfortBorn: Port Huron, Michigan 1909Died: Los Angeles, California 1939oil on canvas40 1/8 x 50 1/8 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum(Chosen By Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt to hang in the White House)

Builders

lithograph by Harry Sternberg, WPA

I Canti (The Cantos)

Gregg Chadwick

78"x60" oil on linen 2011

There is an incredibly rich trove of American visual art and music that celebrates the power and struggles of the worker. Bruce Springsteen's most recent album, Wrecking Ball, continues that tradition. Throughout the album , Springsteen tries to wake us from our national spiritual catalepsy. We, as a people, are asleep but not dead and need only to rise again to continue the struggles for labor rights, immigrant rights, and civil equality throughout our land.

 In the song, We Are Alive, Springsteen sings :

A voice cried out, I was killed in Maryland in 1877

When the railroad workers made their stand

Sixth Regiment Fighting its way through Baltimore

during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877

"Harper's Weekly, Journal of Civilization," Vol XXL, No. 1076, 

 Saturday, August 11, 1877

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 referenced by Springsteen in the above lines was arguably the key moment in the birth of the modern labor movement in the United States. The blood of the men and women cut down on city streets and country lanes across America catalyzed labor strikes and actions that woke up a citizenry  yearning for a better life and hope in a depressed economy ruled by corporate giants that had bought the presidency for Rutherford B. Hayes.

The actions of industrialists in this era and the corruption of Hayes and his cronies answer a deeply important political question. What happened to the Republican party of Abraham Lincoln? How did the GOP devolve into a party of privilege not progressiveness? The simple answer: the Republican party was bought off by Thomas Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad and in a perverse election deal sold off Abraham Lincoln's legacy of equality for all Americans by ending Reconstruction in the former Confederate States:

"Many Americans in 1877 believed their new president had reached the White House through fraud. Certainly Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, was not the man for whom a majority of voters had cast their ballots the previous year. Democrat Samuel Tilden overcame the Ohio governor in the popular vote but 20 disputed electoral votes from Florida and other states threw the election into theHouse of Representatives.

Thomas Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad reached a deal with Hayes: in exchange for a federal bailout of his troubled investment in the Texas and Pacific Railroad, the millionaire industrialist would deliver Congressional votes to Hayes. As a further inducement, the Republicans promised to end Reconstruction, a blatant betrayal of African Americans. Southern Congressmen deserted Tilden, handing the election to Hayes."*1

Hayes came into office a few years after the bank panic of 1873 which had disintegrated into a nationwide economic depression. "Weekly the layoffs, wage cuts, strikes, evictions, breadlines and hunger increased," wrote Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais in Labor’s Untold Story. 

Upon taking office during this depression, as Hayes had promised to his financial and political supporters,  he withdrew federal soldiers from the South and moved the forces to act as shock troops for the newly empowered corporate barons who were slashing wages across the board. Angry railroad workers took control of switches and blocked the movement of trains. As Harper’s Weekly reported the following month, "Governor Matthews evoked the aid of the national government. President Hayes responded promptly." Federal troops armed with Springfield rifles and Gatling guns arrived." Even in the face of the overwhelming fire power arrayed against them, the railroad workers made their stand. 

When I listen to Springsteen's We Are Alive, Mississippi John Hurt's Spike Driver Blues, or REM's Driver 8,  I am reminded of the laborers who built the tracks and engines, the engineers who drove the trains like my Grandpa Desch *2, and to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters who in 1925 became the first labor organization led by blacks to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor. 

We as a nation are only as strong as the weakest member. It is my fervent hope that many will pause to reflect today on the contributions of the labor movement to our growingly inclusive society. Now is not the time to destroy unions and their protections for all. Instead now is the time to celebrate and affirm our shared history of civil and labor rights for all. Elizabeth Broun wrote when considering the exhibit Art and the New Deal organized in 2009 by The Smithsonian Institution: 

"What seems clear is that America gains in the long term when it invests in its own heritage and people."

Happy Labor Day!

1. The UE (United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America) site provides invaluable information on the history and struggles of labor in the United States and I highly recommend spending time on their website to gather a clear history of the movement.

2. My grandfather on my mother's side spent his working life as a train engineer on the Jersey Central Line. That itself sounds like a Springsteen lyric and explains part of my great love for songs of the rail.

The Art of Gregg Chadwick Featured in The Scream - Journal of the Arts

E N T E R

"Echoing layered fragments from the past," Gregg Chadwick's paintings resemble a "fragile palimpsest," offering "under images that bring forth mysterious fragments" from his subconscious.

Please Click Enter & Wander Through An Evocative Feature on the Art of Gregg Chadwick Curated by Stuart Vail and Joanne Warfield

" We need to embrace the beauty of Art to grace our lives and hope that the fruit of the Muses will prevail. I maintain that our salvation may lie in the hands of those who embrace beauty, those in whose works celebrate the majesty and purity of life itself."

—Stuart Vail, Editor

La Vita Trasparente (The Transparent Life)

Gregg Chadwick

La Vita Trasparente (The Transparent Life)
48"x36" oil on linen 2012

Inspired by the poem
La Vita Trasparente by Luigi Fontanella:

LA VITA TRASPARENTE
Luigi Fontanella

Apre la città le sue strade,
corrono biciclette senza persone,
alla finestra s'affaccia
e sparisce un volto di donna,
le vetrine offrono sessi
per ogni stagione,
giro di vite:
balla una coppia agile e magra
nella piazza deserta,
la corsa degli uomini,
agita chiome il bosco
in controluce,
passi su foglie
e solchi di fango duro,
viale d'autunno
carrozza regale
pioggia di rugiada
e di carta:
la vita trasparente.

The Transparent Life
by Luigi Fontanella
(translation by W.S. di Piero)

the city opens its streets,
bicycles go by riderless,
a woman's face in a window
appears then vanishes,
shop windows offer fetishes
for every season,
lives turning,
a slender agile couple dances
in the deserted piazza,
the race men run,
the hairy woods shivering
against the grain of light,
footsteps on leaves
a furrow of stiff mud,
avenue of autumn
royal coach
rain of dew
and paper -
the transparent life.

More at:
Luigi Fontanella

Barcarole

Gregg Chadwick
Barcarole
14"x14" oil on linen 2012

Mulholland Drive

Gregg Chadwick
Mulholland Drive
30"x40" oil on linen 2012

The Poet of Milan

Gregg Chadwick
Il Poeta di Milano (The Poet of Milan)
24"x18" oil on linen 2012

The Venetian Night

Gregg Chadwick

La Notte

14"x11" oil on linen 2012

La Notte, my latest painting, was begun shortly after I returned from my latest excursion to Venice, Italy. Venice, poised between sea and land, is a place where light, shade, color, and reflection merge and recombine in the city's watery environment. In this mirrored world, past and present seem to coexist. History’s shadows slide in and out of darkened alleys and slip along narrow canals.


The color and light found in the artworks of the Venetian painters Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Tiepolo, seen up close in the city of their creation, is always revelatory. These artist's artworks glow like light upon water. This effect of reflected, sparkling light bouncing off canals, is called gibigiane in Venetian dialect. The liquid nature of transparent oils glowing from within, as if light lived within the pigment, seems to fix this quixotic glow onto canvas.

Now Represented by the Sandra Lee Gallery!

I am honored to announce that my artwork is now represented in San Francisco and the Bay Area by the 


Sandra Lee Gallery
251 Post Street, Suite 310
San Francisco, CA 94108
tel: 415.291.8000
art@sandraleegallery.com


Four of my latest paintings are hanging in the gallery, including my most recent artwork - West Village Reader (see below). Please stop in to view the art and say hello to Sandra Lee.

Gregg Chadwick

West Village Reader
14"x11" oil on linen 2012

Umbrella Factory Literary Magazine

My paintings are featured in the latest edition of the wonderful literary magazine -Umbrella Factory.
My painting Red in Rain graces the cover and more works are inside. Please check out the issue. It is stunning!

View Umbrella Factory at - UmbrellaFactoryMagazine.com

@greggchadwick And we love you! Thanks for making our issue look so darned good.
— Umbrella Factory (@ufmagazine) June 21, 2012

I pity the fools who have not checked-out the art by @greggchadwick in our new issue.
— Umbrella Factory (@ufmagazine) June 19, 2012

Yareli Arizmendi: The Face of Cuba, Mexico, and Los Angeles

Gregg Chadwick
Portrait of Yareli Arizmendi
40"x30" oil on linen 2012

I recently completed a portrait of the immensely talented actress Yareli Arizmendi.



“The function of art is to renew our perceptions. The role of the artist is not to say or show what we can all speak or see, but that which we are unable to reveal” –Anais Nin


Born in Mexico, raised in the United States, Yareli Arizmendi coined a word, AmeXican to describe herself:
"It is a declaration of identity for the 21st century; my own account on how I prepared to wage battle in a world spilling over its human-made borders," explains Yareli.

Writer of Magic: Ray Bradbury Dies at 91

Ray Bradbury
Santa Monica, California 2009
Photo by Gregg Chadwick

The author Ray Bradbury died yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 91. Gerald Jonas in the New York Times describes Bradbury as "a master of science fiction whose lyrical evocations of the future reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar America." After atomic weapons obliterated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, fears that science had become more of a threat than a boon found their way into science fiction films and stories that depicted a dystopian future. Bradbury used the magic of stories to create literary works that used this threat as a source of tension in works that often left an impression of hope rather than horror.

For the book loving Bradbury, his novel Fahrenheit 451 - whose title refers to the temperature at which paper ignites - seems to be the most harrowing of his works. A future America that would burn books and thus control the river of ideas and imagination was a horror to be avoided at all costs. François Truffaut turned the book into a critically acclaimed film in 1966 which featured a moving film score by the composer Bernard Herrmann. When Herrmann asked Truffaut why he was chosen over more modernist composers to create music for the film, Truffaut replied,"They'll give me music of the twentieth century, but you'll give me music of the twenty first." Ray Bradbury gave us stories of the 21st century and beyond that will continue to inspire. 

Ray Bradbury
Santa Monica, California 2009
Photo by Gregg Chadwick

More at:

Ray Bradbury's Website

Happy Birthday Walt Whitman

Gregg Chadwick
The Wound-Dresser
(Walt Whitman, Washington D.C., US Civil War, 1865)
30” X 24” oil on linen 2011

"The eyes transcend the medium."

-R.B. Morris (Poet, Musician, Songwriter)   

Walt Whitman's poetry is a continual source of inspiration for me. Whitman's life story is also deeply moving. In December 1862 Walt Whitman saw the name of his brother George, a Union soldier in the 51st New York Infantry, listed among the wounded from the battle of Fredericksburg. Whitman rushed from Brooklyn to the Washington D.C. area to search the hospitals and encampments for his brother. During this time Walt Whitman gave witness to the wounds of warfare by listening gently to the injured soldiers as they told their tales of battle.  Whitman often spent time with soldiers recovering from their injuries in the Patent Office Building (now home to the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum), which had been converted into a hospital for much of the Civil War. Walt Whitman's experiences in Washington deeply affected his life and work and informed the core of his writing. 

Robert Roper's Now the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and His Brothers in the Civil War is an indispensible account of Whitman's time in Washington during the war.  Roper's book examines the Civil War through the experiences of Walt Whitman and provides new findings on the care of wounded soldiers both on the battlefield and in large hospitals in the capital and its environs. Roper also focuses on Whitman's emotional relationships with the  wounded troops he nursed. Walt Whitman journeyed from New York to find his wounded brother George and in the process Walt became a brother to thousands of wounded comrades. Whitman's volunteer work as a nurse during the Civil War is a story that needs to be told in all mediums.

Video by Kenneth Chadwick

The Wound Dresser
by Walt Whitman

An old man bending I come among new faces,
Years looking backward resuming in answer to children,
Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me,
(Arous’d and angry, I’d thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d and I resign’d myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)
Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,
Of unsurpass’d heroes (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)
Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,
Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

O maidens and young men I love and that love me,
What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls,
Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover’d with sweat and dust,
In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush of successful charge,
Enter the captur’d works—yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade,
Pass and are gone they fade—I dwell not on soldiers’ perils or soldiers’ joys
(Both I remember well—many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content).

But in silence, in dreams’ projections,
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,
With hinged knees returning I enter the doors (while for you up there,
Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart).

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,
Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground,
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof’d hospital,
To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,
To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,
An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,
Soon to be fill’d with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill’d again.

I onward go, I stop,
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,
One turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.

On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)
The crush’d head I dress (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away),
The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through I examine,
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard
(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!
In mercy come quickly).

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood,
Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv’d neck and side-falling head,
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,
And has not yet look’d on it.

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,
But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,
And the yellow-blue countenance see.
I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive,
While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.

I am faithful, I do not give out,
The fractur’d thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,
These and more I dress with impassive hand (yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame).

Thus in silence in dreams’ projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,
(Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested,
Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips).

Below is a rich description from Walt Whitman's Diaries that captures his experience as a nurse:

DURING those three years in hospital, camp or field, I made over six hundred visits or tours, and went, as I estimate, counting all, among from eighty thousand to a hundred thousand of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some degree, in time of need. These visits varied from an hour or two, to all day or night; for with dear or critical cases I generally watch’d all night. Sometimes I took up my quarters in the hospital, and slept or watch’d there several nights in succession. Those three years I consider the greatest privilege and satisfaction, (with all their feverish excitements and physical deprivations and lamentable sights) and, of course, the most profound lesson of my life. I can say that in my ministerings I comprehended all, whoever came in my way, northern or southern, and slighted none. It arous’d and brought out and decided undream’d-of depths of emotion. It has given me my most fervent views of the true ensemble and extent of the States. While I was with wounded and sick in thousands of cases from the New England States, and from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and all the Western States, I was with more or less from all the States, North and South, without exception. I was with many from the border States, especially from Maryland and Virginia, and found, during those lurid years 1862–63, far more Union southerners, especially Tennesseans, than is supposed. I was with many rebel officers and men among our wounded, and gave them always what I had, and tried to cheer them the same as any. I was among the army teamsters considerably, and, indeed, always found myself drawn to them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the contraband camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighborhood, and did what I could for them.

More on Walt Whitman during the Civil War at:
Whitman's Drum Taps and
Washington's Civil War Hospitals


More on RB Morris at:
RB Morris.com

Notes on the Painting: A Balance of Shadows

We were not meant to survive. We were meant to live.

- W.S. Merwin

Gregg Chadwick

A Balance of Shadows

72”x96” oil on linen

A Balance of Shadows was begun in 2004 as a visual poem reflecting the tensions of our era. Today, May 24, 2012, I laid a thin transparent layer of lapis lazuli across a section of the sky. Sourced in Afghanistan, this precious stone, when ground into pigment, creates a radiant blue that has been considered auspicious in both east and west. The word depicted in Japanese script in the upper left section of the painting is satori.  The word satori is a Japanese Buddhist term for enlightenment or "understanding". In the Zen Buddhist tradition, satori refers to the experience of kensho. Kensho when used in Zen traditions refers to "seeing into one's true nature." Ken means "seeing," sho means "nature" or "essence." Satori and kensho are commonly translated as enlightenment, a word that is also used to translate bodhi, prajna and buddhahood.

A series of interactions between this painting and viewers worldwide has taken place on the web. Poets, writers and artists from Brazil, to Hong Kong, to Greece, to the Netherlands have interacted with the painting in online dialogues. I have traveled widely in my quest to understand the international connections between east and west. These global interactions inflect my understanding of the painting and help me understand my need to create this work.

Throughout my life I have been compelled to create artworks that depict a world caught between color and elegy, between memory and dream. Inspired by the Buddhist practices of people across the globe, I have created images referencing Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Burma, The United States, India and China. These artworks seem to depict a world in which humanity struggles not just to survive, but to live. My paintings bring out questions.  What does it mean to honor the space between seeing and being? What is the place of beauty in the modern world? Where is the space for contemplation in contemporary life?

In reference to my paintings of monks inspired by Eastern Philosophy, the art writer Peter Clothier has said:

“They exist in an aura of light rather than on some earthly plane. They move through space like transient beings, absorbed in their own silent, meditative isolation. In this way, they seem to project some of the real values of their Buddhist faith: the inevitable passage of time that is at the root of so much human suffering, the illusory quality of what we take to be the real world and, most importantly, the promise of an escape from suffering into enlightenment.”

- Gregg Chadwick, May 2012

Image and Music

by Gregg Chadwick

In response to Spring for Music's Round Two query in the 2012 Great Blogger

Challenge:

We live in an aggressively visual age; images dominate the popular culture. 
But which art form has the most to say about contemporary culture, and why?

Tokyo Streets
photo by Gregg Chadwick 

The dense visual language of the Tokyo cityscape immediately came to mind when I considered Spring for Music's second query in the 2012 Great Blogger Challenge.

The visual cacophony of signs and images that line the streets of the city's shopping districts provide a visual metaphor for the images that threaten to overload us each day as we turn on our computers and televisions. But do images themselves say more than other art forms about contemporary culture? The uncertainty and ambiguity often found in our 21st century lives calls for a rich cultural exploration that images may only hint at.   

When presented with an image, most people begin a process, which is often involuntary, of decoding. The mystery of the moment is often disregarded as we search for meaning as we engage in a kind of mental translation. Who or what is depicted? Should the viewer smile or cry? Would I like to possess this thing, person, moment? 

Perhaps if we look through a few photographs we can get a sense of  the problem at hand. The photo below is often confusing to individual viewers. What is happening here? Is it a sort of photoshopped collage? Without text or a caption it is difficult to pull meaning from the image.  

Context helps in the understanding of the image. I took the photo at the Ghibli Museum outside Tokyo, where the life and work of the amazing Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki is celebrated. 

It is true that we are bombarded daily by imagery. What is often missed is that this phenomenon is nothing new. For example, Lucas Cranach's copy of Hieronymous Bosch's Altarpiece with the Last Judgement provides a cornucopia of beatific and horrific imagery all at once.

Lucas Cranach

Altarpiece with the Last Judgement 

(copy of Hieronymus Bosch's triptych)

  c.1524

Gemäldegalerie, Berlin 

photo by Gregg Chadwick

A closer look at a detail of Cranach's painting presents symbolic messages that simultaneously dazzle the eye and imply a sonic landscape for the ear.

Lucas Cranach

Altarpiece with the Last Judgement (detail) 

(copy of Hieronymus Bosch's triptych)

  c.1524

Gemäldegalerie, Berlin 

photo by Gregg Chadwick

While images tend to be viewed individually or with a small group, the experience of music may be more communal. Composing is often a solitary process, but performance usually involves a give and take between musician and audience.  

Image and Music in Venice, Italy
photo by Gregg Chadwick

In this communal aspect, music has a lot to say about contemporary culture. 

Music has the ability to move us to a communal expression of hope in the face of trouble and, for at least a moment, a rush of joy. This musical rush is akin to the shared glory that spectators feel as their team triumphs on the sporting field. The philosophers Hubert Dreyfus, from UC Berkeley, and Sean Kelly, from Harvard, speak of this Homeric feeling of wonder and gratitude in their marvelous book, All Things Shining:

'There are moments in sport - either in the playing of them or in the witnessing of them - during which something so overpowering happens that it wells up before you as a palpable presence and carries you along as on a powerful wave. At that moment there is no question of ironic distance from the event. That is the moment when the sacred shines."

Like the fans at a Giants football game, the crowd at a concert also gets swept up in a joyous, sacred expression of shared hopes and dreams that hard times cannot defeat.

U2 has used their music to reflect upon contemporary global events. Drawing on the troubles in Northern Ireland, they addressed the contemporary issues in Iran. Audiences responded.

U2 performing Sunday Bloody Sunday during their 360 degrees world tour at the Rose Bowl on October 25th, 2009.

As the song Sunday Bloody Sunday opens, U2 scrolls the lyrics from the Rumi poem Azadi. The word Azadi itself simply means Freedom. U2 supported Artists 4 Freedom by using the Rumi poem which provides the lyrics to Dj Spooky and Sussan Deyhim's track, Azadi (The New Complexity). U2's multimedia screens mash together the lyrics to Azadi along with photos of the protestors in Iran and artworks by Shirin Neshat. I too was inspired and painted Neda the day after her murder in Iran.

Gregg Chadwick
The Call - ندا -Neda
36"x48" oil on linen 2009

Bruce Springsteen's most recent album Wrecking Ball is a scathing indictment of the current state of American society. This album weaves together history, politics, and contemporary societal issues to create a powerful musical expression that challenges and then ultimately unites and ignites his audience. The powerful songs on this album have inspired me in relation to image and meaning.

Gregg Chadwick
Call and Echo
24"x18" oil on linen 2011 

Living Colour's version of Springsteen's American Skin (41 Shots) is a heartbreaking song that honors the senseless death of Amadou Diallo at the hands of the NYPD as he reached for his wallet in an attempt to placate a group of undercover cop's demands. More than once, because of this event, I have told my son, "If an officer stops you - Promise me, you always be polite. And that you'll never. never run away. Promise that you'll always keep your hands in sight."

The death of Trayvon Martin has obviously weighed on Bruce Springsteen and his audiences this past week in Tampa, Boston, and Philadelphia. During three consecutive shows, the band played American Skin (41 Shots) and Springsteen released the professionally shot video on his website along with the lyrics to the song. On Wednesday night in Philadelphia, Springsteen dedicated the song with the words, "This is for Trayvon."

Clearly, music creates a dynamic interaction with a live audience that speaks to and of contemporary culture in powerful and life affirming ways.