Happy Birthday President Obama!

Gregg Chadwick
American Dreams: Barack Obama
oil on linen 2009

for Alex Eliot on his 90th Birthday - "Oriste!"

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.


Gregg Chadwick's Studio with 13 Geisha (13芸者) - in progress

Alex Eliot will turn 90 on April 28, 2009. In his fruitful life, Alex has met with and written about the great artists of his age - 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.


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 son, Cassiel, on the shore of time I will see Alex and Jane Eliot waving to me from eternity and exclaiming, "Oriste!"


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

A Delphic Dream

Gregg Chadwick
A Delphic Dream
36"x18" oil on linen 2009

"As I entered the still bowl, bathed now in marble light, I came to that spot in the dead center where the faintest whisper rises like a glad bird and vanishes over the shoulder of the low hill, as the light of a clear day recedes before the black of night...."
- Henry Miller, The Colossus of Marousi

"For the initiated, there is unabashed wonder and humbleness before the sacred. It's as if you've surprised the secret lurking at the heart of the world."
- Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage

Watching the Beijing Olympics, Thinking of Tibet

As the Beijing Olympics nears its finale, I can't help but think about the conflict between the Olympic ideal and the Chinese state sponsored attempts to make China appear good and powerful at all costs. It seems that at least one of the star Chinese gymnasts has not yet reached the needed Olympic competition age of sixteen and has submitted a state-forged passport with an inaccurate date of birth to the International Olympic Committee. And most of all, the question of Tibet hangs over Beijing like the smog that chokes the athletes lungs. It appears that the Chinese government has blocked the Apple i-tunes site for the past week to keep the Chinese people from hearing and purchasing the benefit album Songs for Tibet. It seems that many of the athletes from around the world had downloaded the album in the Olympic village and were listening to what has become a top rated i-tunes download around the world. The album is a benefit for the Art of Peace Foundation.


Gregg Chadwick
Through Tibetan Eyes
72"x96" oil on linen 2008

Before the current Olympics began there were signs of hope that the question of Tibet would be approached peacefully and intelligently by the senior Chinese leadership. Nicholas D. Kristof wrote in his New York Times opinion piece,
An Olive Branch From the Dalai Lama:

"The senior Chinese leadership should respond by expressing serious interest in talks at the presidential or prime ministerial level. In ancient days, the Olympics were a time to suspend conflict. In that spirit, the two sides should get to work to prepare for a visit by the Dalai Lama in November, followed by top-level negotiations aimed at a historic resolution of the Tibet question. The ball is in the Chinese court."


Tibet The Story Of A Tragedy




More at:
Art of Peace Foundation.
An Olive Branch From the Dalai Lama
Team Darfur

Paintings at Night

Chadwick's "Passports From the Realm" at Julie Nester Gallery

Gregg Chadwick
The Road to Mandalay
40"x30" oil on linen 2007


Gregg Chadwick's new exhibit "Passports From the Realm" opens January 4, 2008 at the Julie Nester Gallery in Park City, Utah.

"In old Arabic poetry love, song, blood and travel appear as four basic desires of the human heart and the only effective means against our fear of death. Thus travel is elevated to the dignity of the elementary needs of humankind." - Czeslaw Milosz on the poetry of travel

Movement, travel and pilgrimage are themes of the 21st Century that often appear in my paintings. Travel can involve a physical relocation or it can exist in the realm of the senses. Recently I attended "A Gathering of Hearts Illuminating Compassion," an interfaith meeting in San Francisco. The Dalai Lama was the keynote speaker at the event. He entered the packed hall, briskly moved up the center aisle, but stopped briefly to greet an elderly Tibetan woman a few feet from where I was seated. Then the Dalai Lama suddenly spun around and, with a beatific smile, gazed deeply and directly into my eyes.

I was transfixed. The moment was short but to me it felt as if all time collapsed within that point. For that moment, it seemed as if the Dalai Lama yearned to see with my eyes as I, in turn, learned to see through his.

These new paintings travel like the visual notes of a modern Marco Polo. They move from Venice, to India, to Tibet, to China, to Burma, to Thailand, to Japan, to New York to New Orleans, sometimes through my eyes and sometimes through the eyes of others.


Gregg Chadwick
Passports From the Realm 36"x48" oil on linen 2007


"Passports from the Realm," an exhibition of new paintings by Gregg Chadwick, opens Friday with an artist's reception from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at Julie Nester Gallery, 1755 B Bonanza Drive, Park City.
For more information or to see more images of Chadwick's work, call 435-649-7855 or visit julienestergallery

More at:
chadwick at nester gallery

Gregg Chadwick's Homepage:
gregg chadwick

The Salt Lake Tribune:
passports from the realm

The Saffron Road

Gregg Chadwick
"The Saffron Road"
40"x90" oil on linen 2007