Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick I do remember the 21st night of September. September is one of my favorite Earth, Wind & Fire songs and of course resonates with me on this date every year. Seeing Earth, Wind & Fire at the Capitol Center in Landover, Maryland was one of the most memorable musical events during my high school years in the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. A friend's father had season tickets for the venue and graciously let his daughter take a group of friends along to the concert. It was the Bicentennial Summer of '76. A sense of possibility and freedom filled the arena that August night and mixed with the funky smell of parsley cut weed. The Emotions, a soulful sister trio from Chicago opened the night with songs from their album Flowers . Their huge hit Best of My Love would arrive the next year. But that night belonged to Earth, Wind & Fire. They opened their show with their band name spelled out in lights above the stage. A synthesizer riff offset with mock ...

"The Battle of #Stonewall - 1969"  by Sandow Birk 1999 Oil on Canvas, 96" x 120" Collection of the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍⚧️ http://sandowbirk.com/stonewal l 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ #OTD in 1969 patrons of the Stonewall Inn in #NYC rebelled against police who entered the bar to harass patrons. Stonewall is considered a galvanizing event in the #LGBTQ #CivilRights movement. The Stonewall is National Historic Landmark. We Are #SantaMonica #History #Pride pic.twitter.com/dZJ3h11gi3 — Santa Monica History Museum (@SMHistoryMuseum) June 28, 2022

  by Gregg Chadwick 44 years ago today, Bruce  Springsteen's  fourth album  Darkness on the Edge of Town was released. The wide open romanticism of Born to Run was missing from this new album. Instead we were greeted with a powerful mix of  Steinbeck, Hopper, Woody Guthrie, and Springsteen's unleashed guitar. Bruce's new guitar sound was both lyrical and powerful. I put that sound into my artistic toolbox and pull it out when I need to. In the opening track Badlands, Springsteen howls that "It ain't no sin to be glad your alive." I've held on to that line as a call to action ever since.  Gregg Chadwick Love In Vain (Castro - San Francisco) 16"x20"oil on linen 2016 I had just finished my freshman year at UCLA and  this was my first summer on the Monterey Bay in central California. The pace of life was so much slower than Los Angeles or Washington DC and I found time for study and reflection in the hours after my temp job finished. I would go fo...

I am posting an online readable copy of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel  Maus in response to the ridiculous decision by the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee who voted 10-0 to remove the book from the eighth-grade English language arts curriculum saying without realizing the horrible irony that the graphic novel should be replaced, if possible, with another book without content deemed objectionable. The Holocaust is arguably the most objectionable violence ever taken against fellow humans by a despotic regime.  Maus recounts the horrifying experiences of Art Spiegelman's father during the Holocaust, in which he depicts Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats. Spiegelman shakes us awake as he depicts the unspeakable through the language of cartoons and graphic novels. Maus is a story of survival and a study of the legacy of trauma. Maus is presented here for readers of all ages. Welcome.  1. The decision of a Tennes...

Gregg Chadwick The River Dreams 16"x11" oil on linen 2009 I learned tonight about the death of  W.S. Merwin. I had a chance to chat briefly with W.S. Merwin after his wonderful reading at the Hammer Museum on October 29, 2009. We spoke of elephants and mystery and nature. Inspiring memories. The poems of W. S. Merwin’s mature career were often Delphic, haunted, and bleak. They seemed to have been delivered unto him, and he transcribed them by lightning flash. https://t.co/Z4biUog5VT — The New Yorker (@NewYorker) March 17, 2019 More on W.S. Merwin: W.S. Merwin Profile Paul Holdengraber In Conversation with W.S. Merwin Poem for Merwin 

by Gregg Chadwick Gregg Chadwick The Late Afternoon of Time - San Francisco 24"x20" oil on linen 2018 Cities, like people, grow and change.  In this spirit, San Francisco  continues to inform my paintings. Last weekend, at a friend's birthday gathering in Culver City, I recounted how  o ne morning, when I lived in San Francisco, I spotted the artist Richard Diebenkorn   leaning up against a BART entrance watching the cable car turnaround across Market Street. Diebenkorn was captivated by the movement of the conductors as they spun the cars around on a giant wooden turntable. I stopped, leaned up against a wall, and flipped through art writer Robert Hughes' book Nothing If Not Critical until I reached his essay on Diebenkorn. I read slowly, pausing often to gaze up at Diebenkorn as he gazed towards Powell Street.   Eventually, I closed the book, walked over and thanked Richard Diebenkorn for his art and inspiration. He smiled and tears seemed to we...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says Martin Luther King Jr.'s "dream has not been realized" 50 years after King's assassination, but "we know it's now our responsibility to carry it on." #MLK50 https://t.co/vysLbhE5r8 pic.twitter.com/O9YmGXt5at — CBS News (@CBSNews) April 4, 2018

by Gregg Chadwick I have been carrying my copy of Jana Prikryl's engaging book of poems " The After Party " with me for a few months now. Before I go out the door, I almost always slip the collection into an open slot in my bag. On recent travels from Los Angeles, to San Francisco, to Carmel, to Milwaukee, to Memphis - Prikryl's book has been with me. Each destination flavors my reading of her poems, almost like memory itself. And in a sense that is what Prikryl does in "The After Party". In her book we travel with her through a series of moments, or times, or places, or memories. Unlike many books where the narrator disappears into the text only to reappear as an overbearing Disney-ride like explicator, in " The After Party " Prikryl joins us on a journey through time. Memory can be like an artist's drawing full of smudged marks, erasures, and fantasies. Prikryl acknowledges this in her poems and lets us glide through her veils of ti...

by Gregg Chadwick Dad (General Robert J. Chadwick USMC) circa 1978 photo courtesy USMC Peter Clothier  asked me a while ago to contribute to his series of Boyhood Memories which he is posting on his new blog site - http://www.boyhoodmoments.com/2016/09/hop-on-pop.html  and eventually working into a book.  I finally finished my story and it has prompted me to continue writing about my life as an artist.  Growing up as the kid of a USMC officer during the Vietnam era inspired me in unique ways. Please have a read and let me know what you think. Also spend some time  on Peter's site.  Masami Teraoka  's piece is timeless and magical and  Michael Provart  's writing is funny and poignant.  Peter Clothier  also adds his own childhood memories into the mix. Every story Peter has received is rich in memory.  Peter introduces my story with the following: "HOP ON POP Here's another "absent father" piece, this one w...

Fascinating Trove - Yale’s Beinecke Library Buys Vast Collection of Lincoln Photos http:// nyti.ms/1G6d786  

by Gregg Chadwick Bruce Springsteen's performance last night at The Concert for Valor was passionate, a bit gritty, and dialed in to the characters in his songs. T he words of Promised Land , Born In the USA , and surprisingly for me Dancing In the Dark cut like a knife through the hushed crowd. Springsteen seemed to embody the underlying pain of the returning warrior and the scourge of PTSD.  Springsteen stood bare on the stage with just a guitar for a compelling reason. Like a soldier returning from war and moving on without a platoon and moving on without a weapon always at hand, Springsteen courageously stood alone. T hrough his lyrics, Springsteen gave truth to the fears that many carry home from war. Yes, you are alone now. Yes, your uniform is packed away and your weapons stowed. But, there is hope. I watched friends and family come home from Vietnam as changed men. I watched many stay in the military for years and then watched them put on their uniforms for the last ti...

by Gregg Chadwick Holland  Cotter has a wonderful new piece in the New York Times entitled A Memory Museum .  Cotter writes,"  I’m also a curator of my memory, which carries traces of art encounters from over the years. A few of those encounters — with certain objects, books, buildings — have altered the atmosphere, changed how I see and joined a permanent collection that I regularly revisit." He then challenges us  to describe experiences with art that has changed our lives and to post them in the comment section in his article. I find this to be an enlightening question: Which works of art have changed the way you look at the world?  I answered Mr. Cotter with the following : The place of memory in the arts is so revealing. One of my first experiences with an artwork happened in Amsterdam when I was a six year old and the experience changed me forever. My father had finished his tour in Vietnam as a USMC JAG and we reunited as a family in Euro...

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.

by Gregg Chadwick “Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill.” -Elie Wiesel   Last night in Los Angeles, President Obama gave a beautiful and powerful speech after accepting the Shoah Foundation ’s Ambassador of Humanity Award from Steven Spielberg during a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza . I want to thank the President, Steven Spielberg and all those involved with the Shoah Foundation for recognizing the importance of remembering. The Shoah Foundation gathers and preserves the stories of those who experienced the Holocaust and other atrocities across the globe. Over the past two decades, the Shoah Foundation has recorded tens of thousands of interviews. Researchers and documentarians have traveled to dozens of countries, interviewing survivors of the  Holocaust, and documenting historical evidence of the Armenian Genocide, and other atrocities. The first person accounts that have been gathered are an invaluable resource for future ...