Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Poolside



Gregg Chadwick
20"x16"oil on linen 2022
    Private Collection, Oxford, Connecticut



Pleased that my painting "Poolside" has been sold by @saatchiart and successfully delivered to its new home near New Haven, Connecticut. It arrived in the midst of a record cold spell and hopefully brought warm memories of Spring and Summer along.
Legs dangling in an aquamarine pool, drink in hand, and a book open to the right page. What is she reading? Perhaps because he was born on this day in 1946, French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard's book "Happiness: "A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill" which explores how to develop happiness as a skill that includes acceptance of pain and struggle through a process of understanding, meditation, and breath.

Or perhaps her book is a collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry?
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me."

Note - if you are in town for the @friezeofficial Art Fair at the Santa Monica Airport, I will have my studio open @18thstreetarts at the Airport during fair hours. Please stop by and say Hello.

#art #SantaMonica #Frieze #Books #Hope #Beauty #ContemporaryArt #greggchadwick


Saturday, December 31, 2022

Happy New Year! On to 2023

 


Gregg Chadwick
30"x 40" oil on linen 

Happy New Year!
明けましておめでとうございます
Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu


In my painting "New York Stories" it’s five minutes to midnight. Waiting for 2022 to move into 2023 like the hands of a clock spinning into the next hour, figures move around the iconic Grand Central clock like foxes huddling beneath a tree in Andō Hiroshige's "New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Ōji"

It’s raining this New Year’s Eve in Santa Monica. I’m listening to a recording of a 10,000-member choir in Japan singing “Ode to Joy” in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Enthusiasm for Beethoven is particularly strong in Japan. Every year in December, singers gather in a concert hall in Osaka to sing the final chorus from Beethoven's Ninth.



Gregg Chadwick
Passing View of Shohei Bridge 
30"x24" oil on linen 1990



Again, my thoughts trace a circuit from this moment back to an earlier New Year in Japan as 1989 rolled into 1990. I was in Tokyo following the spirit and artworks of Ando Hiroshige. That winter in Japan, I clutched a large volume by Henry D. Smith II and Amy G. Poster on Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and trekked on rail, foot and car across the historic core of what was Edo era Tokyo. Sponsored by the Nippon Seiyu-Kai's 30th Anniversary Award, I endeavored to create a series of new paintings inspired by Hiroshige’s woodcuts. Time, place, memory, mystery and lore all mixed in my artworks.


Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) (Japanese, 1797-1858)
 New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Oji
( No. 118 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)
 9th month of 1857  Woodblock print
 Brooklyn Museum


Today @nortonsimon posted a photo of one of the most mysterious images from Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Alison Baldassano from the Brooklyn Museum wrote about this artwork, "People aren’t the only beings who gather together for special celebrations on the night before a new year dawns. In this woodblock print by Hiroshige, foxes come together on New Year’s Eve to receive directions for the upcoming year and emit ghostly flames, the size of which helps predict the next year’s crop…. And, as the foxes could say in the morning, 明けましておめでとうございます (akemashite omedetou gozaimasu) or #HappyNewYear!"


#art #NewYear #NYC #japan

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Art for Someone You Love

 


Gregg Chadwick
Promenade
7"x5" oil on panel 2021
Private Collection, Austin, Texas

Honored that my painting, Promenade, is included in the new Art for Someone You Love collection on Saatchi Art curated by Erin Remington (Assistant Curator at Saatchi Art). Erin writes,"Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight––art history is full of extraordinary and remarkable love stories. Discover a new work in this collection of artworks inspired by passion, love, and all things romance."



Collectors With Their New Painting at The Other Art Fair, Barker Hangar 2018
Gregg Chadwick 
Love In a Blue Time
7"x5" oil on panel
Private Collection, Los Angeles, California

I enjoy painting couples. I continue to create a series of artworks depicting partners caught in moments of intimacy.



Gregg Chadwick
The Runners
5"x5" oil on panel 2018
Private Collection, Los Angeles

With Valentine's Day coming up I would like to remind you that commissions are available for me to paint you and your loved one. Please contact me at greggchadwick@icloud.com for details. I like to make my small 7"x5"oil on wood panel paintings easily available so they are affordably priced. 


Gregg Chadwick
Timeless
7"x5" oil on panel 2019
Private Collection, Virginia


Thursday, January 20, 2022

Year One of the Biden-Harris Administration


It's never been a good idea to bet against America. And, there's nothing we can't do if we do it together. We are stronger today than we were a year ago. Watch our new video on the first year of the Biden-Harris Administration.









Monday, November 02, 2020

Seamus Heaney -- From "The Cure at Troy"



💎
SEAMUS HEANEY
💎
Reads “The Cure at Troy” “History says, Don't hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.”

Future US President Joe Biden often quotes these inspiring lines
from Seamus Heaney's "The Cure at Troy"

Saturday, March 21, 2020

Over the Rainbow



Chino Valley Unified School District's annual Choral Festival was canceled, so the students all sang their individual a cappella portion of "Over the Rainbow" in their separate homes, and put them together to create this masterpiece.

Thursday, December 05, 2019

The Arts Can Bring Us Together





Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Paris - Fluctuat nec Mergitur

by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick
Bookseller's Night
oil on linen 2018
After the Notre Dame Cathedral Fire - in the light of day- Our Lady is scarred but standing resiliently!
Angela Merkel’s spokesperson responded with the Parisian motto: a Latin phrase that personifies Paris and Notre Dame as a ship: “Fluctuat nec mergitur”—“she is tossed by the waves but does not sink.” The saying has been Paris’ motto since the 14th century, about the time when Notre Dame was completed.
With grateful feelings about Notre Dame and Paris, I am pleased to let you know that my Parisian inspired painting "Bookseller's Night" has been chosen by Rebecca Wilson, Chief Curator and VP, Art Advisory at Saatchi Art, for the New This Week collection. 

My oil on linen painting "Bookseller's Night" was inspired by a sojourn in Paris near Montmartre. That summer the light hung on late into the evening until the sky rolled into a blue hour. While walking the Parisian streets under those deep blue skies, I would often stop to glance at books spread out like magical treatises on art and life. We lived that summer in the shadow of Monet, Manet, and Caillebotte. Two of Manet's last studios were on our street and nearby on the Place de Dublin, Caillebotte set his magical painting "Paris Street; Rainy Day" ("Rue de Paris, temps de pluie"). Nearby was the Gare Saint-Lazare which inspired Monet to create Turneresque images of trains and steam.
I carried those memories with me as I painted "Bookseller's Night" along with time traveling thoughts of San Francisco and New York.
A few years ago, I stood outside in a clearing of a Monterey, California forest near the coast in the middle of the night with my brother and René Boitelle, a painting conservator at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Unlike the skies in Los Angeles, we were able to see the stars in the night sky and of course thought of Vincent Van Gogh’s painterly evocations of the glittering night. Van Gogh was able to capture the night in his paintings with his skillful use of midnight blue and starry yellow. Gazing at a Van Gogh painting of a star filled sky, it seems as if he knew that the lights he saw in the dark night sky had traveled from the deepest reaches of time. According to physicists, as we gaze at the stars, in essence we are looking back towards the beginning of time.
Later that week, I stood with René and another conservator, Devi Ormond, before a Van Gogh painting of a weaver; the painting was laid out like a patient on a table in the Getty Museum’s conservation lab. The work seemed so fragile, yet at the same time sturdy and timeless hearkening back to an era of firelight, candlelight, and moonlight. Soon after Van Gogh painted his weavers, the advent of electricity would completely alter the character of the night. Perhaps in every painting of the night there is a hint of this loss, echoing the shadowed forms in the artwork. I am reminded of the nights many years ago when, before painting, I would put Miles Davis on the record player. I would drop the needle on the first track and listen to the hiss and crackle as ‘Round Midnight began to play– the music always muted, blurred as if it emerged from a smoke filled room.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Tonight - Siddhali Shree's "Stopping Traffic" at the North Hollywood Cinefest

by Gregg Chadwick

I had the honor to watch Siddhali Shree's powerful documentary film "Stopping Traffic" at the Women Illuminated Film Festival on March 12, 2018 in New York. Tonight - Wednesday, March 28TH at the North Hollywood Cinefest, Shree's important call to action will be screened and she will be on a directors panel.  Shree explains that now "with the instant reach of social media and the explosion in cyber porn, a child sex slave can be purchased online and delivered to a customer more quickly than a pizza."
Shree's " Stopping Traffic: The Movement to End Sex Trafficking" does not hold back. It is at times raw in its dialogue and heart-wrenching as we hear stories from survivors.  Shree is the first North American Jain female-monk, a US Army Iraq veteran, international speaker, author, documentarian, and an activist for social justice. In her film she has gathered activists, front-line rescue and aid organizations, and justice workers who are lending their names and clout to launch a movement to end this modern-day form of slavery in the U.S. and abroad. If you are in L.A., please go see this powerful film tonight and hear Siddhali Shree tell her inspiring story. 


7:30PM - DIRECTORS / EDITORS PANEL

Siddhali Shree - Stopping Traffic
Steven Sprung - Star Trek: Beyond, Santa Clarita Diet
Payman Benz - The Last Man on Earth, Key and Peele

Laemmle NoHo 7 Theaters
5240 Lankershim Blvd

North Hollywood, CA 91601





Stopping Traffic
Documentary / USA / 90 min.
Produced & Directed:  Sadhvi Siddhali Shree



 Director/Producer Sadhvi Siddhali Shree in a contemplative pose
at the Women Illuminated Film Festival
New York City, March 2018
photo by Gregg Chadwick

Friday, October 20, 2017

A Needed Dose of Hope - Obama


Tuesday, May 23, 2017

U2 "Miss Sarajevo" at the Rose Bowl - May 20, 2017





Video by Gregg Chadwick



U2 "Miss Sarajevo" at the Rose Bowl - May 20, 2017 with powerful visuals commenting on the civil war in Syria. Moving snippet added by Bono at the end with the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty. There were many beautiful musical moments at the Rose Bowl, from Edge's chiming guitar, to Adam Clayton's deep, fat bass, to Larry Mullin's powerful drumming, to an engaged Bono. For much of the evening, U2 performed in front of a giant video screen filled with Corbijn's evocative new imagery, and later filmed tributes to women's rights and the plight of Syrian refugees. As Bono says to Andy Greene in Rolling Stone,

"Let's meet one such immigrant who he wants to turn away from the shore. I commissioned french artist J.R. He didn't have much time to do it. Where are we going to find this girl? He finds her in Zaatari in a camp in Jordan, which I visited with my daughter and [my wife] Ali a year ago. He finds this incredible spirit, Omaima. She talks about America as a dreamland. She closes her eyes and J.R. asks her in another segment of the film we don't broadcast, 'What do you see when you think of America?' She goes, 'Oh, it is a civilized country and they are a good people.' It was just heartbreaking."

 A giant banner bearing a photo of Omaima, the young Syrian refugee featured on the large screen, was carried through the crowd during Miss Sarajevo



"Miss Sarajevo"

U2



Is there a time for keeping your distance

A time to turn your eyes away

Is there a time for keeping your head down

For getting on with your day

Is there a time for kohl and lipstick

A time for curling hair

Is there a time for high street shopping

To find the right dress to wear

Here she comes, oh oh

Heads turn around

Here she comes

To take her crown

Is there a time to run for cover

A time for kiss and tell

Is there a time for different colors

Different names you find it hard to spell

Is there a time for first communion

A time for East Seventeen

Is there a time to turn to Mecca

Is there time to be a beauty queen

Here she come, oh oh

Beauty plays the clown

Here she comes

Surreal in her crown

Dici che il fiume

Trova la via al mare

E come il fiume

Giungerai a me

Oltre i confini

E le terre assetate

Dici che come fiume

Come fiume

L'amore giungerà

L'amore

E non so più pregare

E nell'amore non so più sperare

E quell'amore non so più aspettare

Is there a time for tying ribbons

A time for Christmas trees

Is there a time for laying tables

And the night is set to freeze





The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarus



Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Full Concert Video by Chrisedge below:

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Happy New Year 2017 and Some of the Best Things that Happened in 2016

by Gregg Chadwick

Happy New Year 2017!

It’s raining this New Year’s Eve in Santa Monica. The haunting voice of Gil Scott-Heron singing Winter In America fills our living room. My thoughts trace a circuit from this moment back to an earlier New Year in Japan as 1989 rolled into 1990. I was in Tokyo following the spirit and artworks of Ando Hiroshige. That winter in Japan, I clutched a large volume by Henry D. Smith II and Amy G. Poster on Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and trekked on rail, foot and car across the historic core of what was Edo era Tokyo. Sponsored by the Nippon Seiyu-Kai's 30th Anniversary Award, I endeavored to create a series of new paintings inspired by Hiroshige’s woodcuts. Time, place, memory, mystery and lore all mixed in my artworks.



Gregg Chadwick
Passing View of Shohei Bridge 
30"x24" oil on linen 1990

 Today, on the Brooklyn museum’s Tumblr page, Alison Baldassano posted a photo of one of the most mysterious images from Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. She wrote,"People aren’t the only beings who gather together for special celebrations on the night before a new year dawns. In this woodblock print by Hiroshige, foxes come together on New Year’s Eve to receive directions for the upcoming year and emit ghostly flames, the size of which helps predict the next year’s crop…. And, as the foxes could say in the morning, 明けましておめでとうございます (akemashite omedetou gozaimasu) or Happy New Year!"




Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) (Japanese, 1797-1858)
 New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Oji
( No. 118 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)
 9th month of 1857  Woodblock print
 Brooklyn Museum

And some of the best things that happened in 2016!
(Please scroll to the end for all 51)

Thinking about the past year and inspired by a series of tweets by Canadian Astronaut Commander Hadfield, who is back on Earth after living aboard ISS as Commander of Expedition 35 , I have put together a list of positive achievements from 2016. Yes, it has been a difficult year with the Trumpian circus and the deaths of far too many in Aleppo, Iraq, Turkey, Nice, and Berlin. Not to mention, the untimely passing of artists from David Bowie, to Prince, to Carrie Fisher and so many more. 

1. It’s easy to forget that this year saw a great many positive accomplishments. Let’s take a look: 

2. The Colombian government and FARC rebels committed to a lasting peace, ending a war that killed or displaced over 7 million people.

3. Sri Lanka spent five years working to exile the world’s deadliest disease from their borders. As of 2016, they are malaria free.

4. The Giant Panda, arguably the world’s cutest panda, has officially been removed from the endangered species list.



5. @astro_timpeake became the first ESA astronaut from the UK, symbolizing a renewed British commitment to space exploration.

6. Tiger numbers around the world are on the rise for the first time in 100 years, with plans to double by 2022.


7. Juno, a piece of future history, successfully flew over 588 million miles and is now sending back unprecedented data from Jupiter.

8. The number of veterans in the US who are homeless has halved in the past half-decade, with a nearly 20% drop in 2016.
Thank you Michelle Obama and so many more!



Army Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Howell, 8th Theater Sustainment Command public affairs operations noncommissioned officer, talks with a homeless veteran ahead of the annual Veterans Stand-Down in Honolulu, Aug. 5, 2015. 
The stand-down was part of the Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness initiative announced by First Lady Michelle Obama as a way to challenge the mayors in major cities to provide services and supplies to homeless veterans such as food, shelter, clothing, medical, dental and benefits counseling with the hope of getting them off the streets. Courtesy photo


9. Malawi lowered its HIV rate by 67%, and in the past decade have seen a shift in public health that has saved over 250,000 lives.

10. Air travel continue to get safer, and 2016 saw the second fewest per capita deaths in aviation of any year on record.

11. India’s dogged commitment to reforestation saw a single day event planting more than 50 million trees, a world record.



Hundreds of thousands of people in India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh planted 50 million trees in 24 hours. 
(AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

12. Measles has been eradicated from the Americas. A 22 year vaccination campaign has led to the elimination of the historic virus.

13. After a century, Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves has been found verifiable, in a ‘moon shot’ scientific achievement.

14. China has announced a firm date for the end of the ivory trade, as public opinion is becoming more staunchly environmentalist.

15. A solar powered airplane flew across the Pacific Ocean for the first time, highlighting a new era of energy possibilities.




16. Costa Rica’s entire electrical grid ran on renewable energy for over half the year, and their capacity continues to grow.

17. Israeli and US researchers believe they are on the brink of being able to cure radiation sickness, after successful tests this year.

18. The ozone layer has shown that through tackling a problem head on, the world can stem environmental disasters, together.

19. A new treatment for melanoma has seen a 40% survival rate, taking a huge step forward towards long-term cancer survivability.

20. An Ebola vaccine was developed by Canadian researchers with 100% efficacy. Humans eradicated horror, together.

21. British Columbia protected 85% of the world’s largest temperate rainforest, in a landmark environmental agreement.



Spirit bears are the best known part of the unique flora and fauna of the Great Bear Rainforest that will be protected under an agreement finalized in B.C. 
Spirit bears, also known as Kermode bears, are black bears with a unique genetic variation that gives them their cream-coloured fur. (Photo by Ian McAllister)

22. 2016 saw the designation of more than 40 new marine sanctuaries in 20 countries, covering an area larger than the United States.

23. These marine reserves include Malaysia’s 13 year struggle to complete a million hectare park, completed this year.

24. This also includes the largest marine reserve in history, created in Antarctica via an unprecedented agreement by 24 nations.

25. Atmospheric acid pollution, once a gloomy reality, has been tackled to the point of being almost back to pre-industrial levels.

26. Major diseases are in decline. The US saw a 50% mortality drop in colon cancer; lower heart disease, osteoporosis and dementia.

27. Uruguay won a major case against Philip Morris in a World Bank ruling, setting a precedent for other small countries that want to deter tobacco use.

28. World hunger has reached its lowest point in 25 years, and with poverty levels dropping worldwide, seems likely to continue.

29. The A.U. made strides to become more unified, launching an all-Africa passport meant to allow for visa-free travel for all citizens.

30. Fossil fuel emissions flatlined in 2016, with the Paris agreement becoming the fastest UN treaty to become international law.

31. One third of Dutch prison cells are empty as the crime rate shrank by more than 25% in the last eight years, continuing to drop.

32. Homelessness in the United States declined by 35% since 2007, and Los Angeles committed to $1.2 billion to help get more people off the street. Amanda Hoover in the Christian Science Monitor writes,"The decreases nationwide, especially those involving chronic homelessness, come in part thanks to a push for permanent housing options rather than temporary placements that are no longer seen as a good path to getting people 'back on their feet.' Communities, such as Boston, that have explored supportive, long-term options have seen more of their vulnerable citizens thrive, and some say an expansion of that plan could eradicate the issue of homelessness entirely."

33. @BoyanSlat successfully tested his Ocean Cleanup prototype, and aims to clean up to 40% of ocean-borne plastics starting this year.

34. Israel now produces 55% of its freshwater, turning what is one of the driest countries on earth into an agricultural heartland.

35. The Italian government made it harder to waste food, creating laws that provided impetus to collect, share and donate excess meals.

36. People pouring ice on their head amusingly provided the ALS foundation with enough funding to isolate a genetic cause of the disease in 2016.

37. Manatees, arguably the most enjoyable animal to meet when swimming, are increasing their population.

38. The United States now feeds healthy lunches to more than 30 million children, is about to ban trans fats, and has enacted one of the biggest overhauls of nutrition labels in decades.

39. Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announces ban on transgender discrimination

40. In December, Gambia became the latest African country to show that voting does count, and dictators do fall. 

41. The Gates Foundation announced another 5 billion dollars towards eradicating poverty and disease in Africa.

42. Individual Canadians were so welcoming that the country set a world standard for how to privately sponsor and resettle refugees.

43. Teenage birth rates in the United States have never been lower, while at the same time graduation rates have never been higher.

44. In 2012, the US and Mexico embarked on an unprecedented binational project to revive the Colorado River. By 2016, the results had astonished everyone. 

45. SpaceX made history by landing a rocket upright after returning from space, potentially opening a new era of space exploration.

46. Black incarceration rates fell in the United States. Not fast enough, but certainly something worth celebrating. 

47. The proportion of older US adults with dementia, including Alzheimer’s, declined from 11.6% in 2000 to 8.8% in 2012, a decrease of about a million people.

48. Mobile phones made significant inroads in the fight against rabies, a disease that kills more people annually than all terrorists combined.

49. In November, the Obama administration followed up its March announcements by banning offshore exploration and drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic until 2022. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/5-year-drilling-plan-arctic-waters-obama-231615

50. The World Health Organisation released a report showing that, since the year 2000, global malaria deaths have declined by 60%. 


51. Katherine Johnson, 98, was able to see her life's work as a mathematician realized, recognized, and appreciated.  #STEMwomen



There are countless more examples, large and small. If we refocus on the things that are working, our new year will be better than the last.

Thinking of all of you this holiday season! 

We remain hopeful in this dark moment and send healing thoughts your way.

Thank you for your love and support!

Gregg



This is an update from an earlier letter. I will be sending these out as the situation develops.
It is my goal in these updates to point out the injustice our country faces and actions we can take to find peace and overcome this tide of hate coming from DJT supporters and DJT ideas and policies.
I have posted the content of my first letter without personal details on my blog Speed of Life -