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Gregg Chadwick Mulholland Blue 24"x30" oil on linen 2013 |
Honored that my painting Mulholland Blue is included in Saatchi Online's "Best of 2013" feature:
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Mulholland Blue in Saatchi Online's Best of 2013
Friday, December 13, 2013
Wednesday at Book Passage in Corte Madera - Burning the Midnight Oil: Illuminating Words for the Long Night's Journey Into Day
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| Gregg Chadwick Night Swim, Kaufmann House 24"x30" oil on linen 2013 Courtesy Sandra Lee Gallery, San Francisco, California |
On Friday, December 13th, we chased away the demons with an inspiring book reading
at Book Soup on Sunset in Hollywood with the presentation of Burning the Midnight Oil: Illuminating Words for the Long Night's Journey into Day, which includes my essay Night Painting. Please join us at Book Passage in Corte Madera on December 18, 2013 at 7 pm for our next event. I will again be reading.
Phil Cousineau and I will be appearing with special guest Jeff "the Dude" Dowd.
Yes, that one.
The event is free and open to the public.
More info at: http://www.bookpassage.com/event/phil-cousineau-burning-midnight-oil
Thursday, December 05, 2013
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
The Courage to Create at Esalen December 6-8 2013
The Courage to Create
WEEKEND OF DECEMBER 6-8, 2013
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| Gregg Chadwick The Painter (il miglior fabbro) 24"x30" oil on linen 2013 |
What role does creativity play in our lives? Is it an inner imperative that helps us forge the well-lived life? This workshop at Esalen, situated along California's rugged Big Sur coastline, engages with the notion that creativity is a “battle with the gods” in light of its Latin origins in the word creare, the natural urge “to grow or make order of chaos."
Our point of departure is that creativity is an archetypal journey with recognizable stages, which are especially helpful when we are stuck or lost in our work. For the last thirty years, Phil Cousineau has used his three-stage model — Inspiration, Perspiration, and Realization — as a guide to help writers, artists, and filmmakers to deepen and complete their work. The artist Gregg Chadwick uses his own artwork and anecdotes from his lifelong study of painters to provide an inside look at practices that will help us find a balance between inspiration and the marketplace, traditional notions of beauty with daring acts of innovation, and personal discipline with the importance of building community. Together, they will alternate lecture, discussion, movie clips, slide shows, readings, and exercises that encourage cross-fertilization between the visual arts and the written word.
This workshop is designed for creative souls in every field who hope to rekindle their imagination and passion, and renew their sense of joy.
Recommended reading: Cousineau, Stoking the Creative Fires and The Art of Pilgrimage; Cousineau and Chadwick, The Painted Word.
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| Gregg Chadwick Die Kathedrale Der Bücher (The Cathedral of Books) 36"x48" oil on linen 2013 |
Phil Cousineau
Phil Cousineau
Phil Cousineau is a freelance writer, filmmaker, teacher, and youth baseball coach. He has published more than 30 books, including the bestselling The Hero's Journey: The Life and Work of Joseph Campbell. He has written award-winning documentary films, and is the host of "Global Spirit," a nationally broadcast series on LINK TV and PBS.
Gregg Chadwick
Gregg Chadwick creates his artwork in an old airplane hangar in Santa Monica, California. The recurring sound of airplane take-offs and landings from the active airport runway outside his studio reminds him of his own history of travel. Chadwick has exhibited his artworks in galleries and museums both nationally and internationally. He earned a Bachelor's Degree at UCLA and a Master’s Degree at NYU, both in Fine Art. He has had notable solo exhibitions at the Manifesta Maastricht Gallery (Maastricht, The Netherlands), Space AD 2000 (Tokyo, Japan), the Sandra Lee Gallery (San Francisco), and the Lisa Coscino Gallery (Pacific Grove) among others. He has participated in nearly one hundred group exhibitions including at the di Rosa Preserve's Off the Preserve (Sonoma), the San Francisco Art Institute, the Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, the Monterey Art Museum, the LOOK Gallery (Los Angeles), the Arena 1 Gallery (Santa Monica), and the Arts Club of Washington (Washington DC). Chadwick’s art is notably included in the collections of the Adobe Corporation, the Gilpin Museum, the Graciela Hotel in Burbank, the Harbor Court Hotel in San Francisco; the Kimpton Group’s headquarters in San Francisco, the National Museum of the Marine Corps, Nordstrom Company Headquarters, the W Hotel Hollywood, and Winona State University.
Chadwick is frequently invited to lecture on the arts; in 2011-13 he spoke at UCLA, Monterey Peninsula College, the Esalen Institute, and at the World Views forum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands as well as at Categorically Not, a monthly forum that considers the arts and science, in May 2013.
Chadwick is frequently invited to lecture on the arts; in 2011-13 he spoke at UCLA, Monterey Peninsula College, the Esalen Institute, and at the World Views forum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands as well as at Categorically Not, a monthly forum that considers the arts and science, in May 2013.
Monday, November 25, 2013
High Hopes
Bruce Springsteen On His New Album High Hopes:
I was working on a record of some of our best unreleased material from the past decade when Tom Morello (sitting in for Steve during the Australian leg of our tour) suggested we ought to add “High Hopes” to our live set. I had cut “High Hopes,” a song by Tim Scott McConnell of the LA based Havalinas, in the 90′s. We worked it up in our Aussie rehearsals and Tom then proceeded to burn the house down with it. We re-cut it mid tour at Studios 301 in Sydney along with “Just Like Fire Would,” a song from one of my favorite early Australian punk bands, The Saints (check out “I’m Stranded”). Tom and his guitar became my muse, pushing the rest of this project to another level. Thanks for the inspiration Tom.
Some of these songs, “American Skin” and “Ghost of Tom Joad,” you’ll be familiar with from our live versions. I felt they were among the best of my writing and deserved a proper studio recording.
”The Wall” is something I’d played on stage a few times and remains very close to my heart. The title and idea were Joe Grushecky’s, then the song appeared after Patti and I made a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. It was inspired by my memories of Walter Cichon. Walter was one of the great early Jersey Shore rockers, who along with his brother Ray (one of my early guitar mentors) led the ”Motifs”. The Motifs were a local rock band who were always a head above everybody else. Raw, sexy and rebellious, they were the heroes you aspired to be. But these were heroes you could touch, speak to, and go to with your musical inquiries. Cool, but always accessible, they were an inspiration to me, and many young working musicians in 1960′s central New Jersey. Though my character in “The Wall” is a Marine, Walter was actually in the Army, A Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry. He was the first person I ever stood in the presence of who was filled with the mystique of the true rock star. Walter went missing in action in Vietnam in March 1968. He still performs somewhat regularly in my mind, the way he stood, dressed, held the tambourine, the casual cool, the freeness. The man who by his attitude, his walk said “you can defy all this, all of what’s here, all of what you’ve been taught, taught to fear, to love and you’ll still be alright.” His was a terrible loss to us, his loved ones and the local music scene. I still miss him.
This is music I always felt needed to be released. From the gangsters of “Harry’s Place,” the ill-prepared roomies on “Frankie Fell In Love” (shades of Steve and I bumming together in our Asbury Park apartment) the travelers in the wasteland of “Hunter Of Invisible Game,” to the soldier and his visiting friend in “The Wall”, I felt they all deserved a home and a hearing.
Hope you enjoy it,
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Tuesday, November 05, 2013
Meet the De Blasios, New York City's New First Family
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Orpheus and Eurydice in the 21st Century: R.B. Kitaj, Rilke and Arcade Fire (Part 1)
by Gregg Chadwick
Last night the L.A. Louver Gallery held a rousing discussion: R.B. Kitaj's Life & Passion, with Tracy Bartley (director of the R.B. Kitaj studio), Derek Boshier (artist), David N. Myers (professor and chair of the UCLA History Department), and Paul Holdengräber (curator, instigator and Director/Founder of LIVE from the New York Public Library).
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Titian Orpheus and Eurydice 15 9/16" x 20 7/8" oil on wood ca. 1508–12 Accademia Carrara, Bergamo photo courtesy Metropolitan Museum, New York |
As I listened to the conversation, I scanned the room full of many of Kitaj's last paintings and was struck by the realization that in these artworks Kitaj was attempting to bring his deceased wife Sandra back from death - Kitaj as the poet/artist incarnation of the mythic Orpheus would bring Sandra (his Eurydice, taken too soon) back from the underworld. These vibrant paintings were not just a testament to their passion but instead an almost alchemical journey into the mystery and abyss of life, loss, and love.
In the myth, Orpheus travels to the underworld to win back the life of Eurydice, who was bitten by a serpent (seen above in the left vignette of Titian's painting from the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy) and died shortly after the two wed. Orpheus plays music of such beauty for Hades, master of the underworld, that he allows Eurydice to return to Earth with Orpheus. But with the strict condition that Orpheus walk in front of Eurydice and never look back during their journey from the depths. Overcome by an anxious fear, Orpheus breaks his discipline and turns to look back at his reborn Eurydice only to cause her to vanish forever.
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| R.B.Kitaj Los Angeles No. 27 (Go Down) 36" x 36" oil on canvas 2003–4 photo courtesy L.A. Louver Gallery |
When I reached home, Reflektor - the new album from Arcade Fire, was already downloading onto my computer. The songs on this album also engage with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Auguste Rodin’s marble statue of Orpheus and Eurydice, from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, graces Reflektor's album cover. This image portrays the essential kernel of the myth, the mytheme of not looking back, which is also reflected in the Biblical story of Lot's wife escaping from Sodom and the Grimms' folk tale Hansel and Gretel.
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Gregg Chadwick Mulholland Blue 24"x30" oil on linen 2013 (Currently curated by Director Rebecca Wilson on Saatchi Online into featured collection) |
My new painting Mulholland Blue also engages with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In my work, an Orpheus-like character in the foreground vanishes as a green dressed Eurydice figure slips into the distance. The distant lights of the city glisten in the night air. Does she stand for a moment to view the world she will never return to? Or is our 21st century urbanity the underworld?
In upcoming posts I will consider these questions as well as diving much more deeply into R.B. Kitaj, Rilke, and Arcade Fire. Next up in Part 2: Rilke Releases Eurydice.
Monday, October 28, 2013
New York City Man - Lou Reed
by Gregg Chadwick
"Lou Reed gave us the street and the landscape - and we peopled it."
- David Bowie in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"
Well hey, man, that's just a lie
It's a lie she tells her friends
'Cause the real song, the real song
Where she won't even admit to herself
The beatin' in her heart
It's a song lots of people know
It's a painful song
A little sad truth
But life's full of sad songs
Penny for a wish
But wishin' won't make you a soldier.
With a pretty kiss for a pretty face
Can't have it's way
Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay
- From the beginning of the "Slipaway" section of Lou Reed's song Street Hassle.
Uncredited spoken vocals by Bruce Springsteen.
Reed's urban suite New York kept me close to the city I loved even as I moved west to California. On a trip back to Manhattan a few years later, a friend who had opened a restaurant in the Village told me that she thought that she had been given a sign that she would make it, because Lou Reed was becoming a regular at her joint.
Not long after, Reed and his song Why Can't I be Good rumbled across the screen in Wim Wenders' cinematic sequel to Wings of Desire - Far Away So Close. Lou Reed's future wife, performance artist, composer and musician Laurie Anderson, also provided powerful music for the film. On a recent artistic excursion to Berlin, memories of these two films and Reed's album Berlin brought to light elements of the city that I had missed in the past.
Much like an author will write about an event or a place to learn what they feel, I will create a series of artworks to understand what I have seen. I pushed my interaction with Berlin into a recent ongoing series of monotypes fueled partly by the visions of Lou Reed, Wim Wenders, Bertolt Brecht, and David Bowie,
As Gavin Edwards wrote in Rolling Stone,"While many musicians have made Berlin albums, Lou Reed's Berlin (1973) is the wrist-slashing standard against which they're all judged. When the record concluded with the epic ballad Sad Song, it felt like the whole world was shutting down." Berlin forces us to wrestle with the dead as we walk through its haunted and enchanted streets. After the fall of the wall, Berlin has come to embody the future while at the same time carrying the scars of the past. In the city of Berlin, the political and the personal merge, as evidenced in Lou Reed's Berlin album and David Bowie's recent song Where Are We Now?. In Berlin we are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age and die, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade.
During the last years of his life, Lou Reed continued to work with and inspire younger musicians and artists. One of the most fruitful of these mentorship/collaborations was his work with Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons. John Hodgman in the New York Times recounts how the cover image of Antony's EP, I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy "caught the attention of the producer Hal Willner, who bought the EP and played it for Lou Reed, with whom he was working at the time:
'I said, 'Who is that?' Reed recalled. 'So we set out to find him, and he was a few blocks away as it turns out.' ''
Lou Reed invited Antony to tour with him throughout 2003, and every night Antony would sing Candy Says, Reed's haunting tribute to Candy Darling. Caught in the video below, Lou Reed, one of the most influential musicians of the rock era, looks across towards Antony with an expression of pride and wonder. Lou seems mesmerized by what he described as Antony's double tracking and unusual harmonies. Reed had said that he could listen to Antony sing all day. In this video we witness a legend passing on his wisdom and inspiration to another.
Antony and Lou Reed Perform Candy Says
More Videos Below:
Lou Reed & David Bowie Discuss Reed's Album Transformer
in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"
"Lou Reed gave us the street and the landscape - and we peopled it."
- David Bowie in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"
Well hey, man, that's just a lie
It's a lie she tells her friends
'Cause the real song, the real song
Where she won't even admit to herself
The beatin' in her heart
It's a song lots of people know
It's a painful song
A little sad truth
But life's full of sad songs
Penny for a wish
But wishin' won't make you a soldier.
With a pretty kiss for a pretty face
Can't have it's way
Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay
- From the beginning of the "Slipaway" section of Lou Reed's song Street Hassle.
Uncredited spoken vocals by Bruce Springsteen.
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| Annie Leibovitz Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson Coney Island, New York, 1995 Silver Print
When I found out about Lou Reed's death yesterday morning from Rolling Stone's twitter feed I turned to my Lou Reed playlist and put Reed's cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson's haunting blues number - See That My Grave is Kept Clean along with Antony and the Johnsons' song with Lou Reed - Fistful of Love, and Reed's elegiac urban hymn Berlin, on repeat.
For many of us who came of age and under the influence of the New York City of the 1970's and 1980's, Lou Reed was New York. While at NYU working on my grad degree in art, Reed's music provided an aural map for my explorations across the city. Reed's staccato talk/singing proved to be a gruff yet tender guided tour through my artistic and lovelorn ventures. Often while on the A train, Marty Fogel's Junior Walker fueled sax riff on Reed's Shooting Star would blare in my walkman's headphones. And Walk on the Wild Side always seemed to accompany me across Washington Square. |
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| Gregg Chadwick Ghosts of New Amsterdam 24"x36" oil on linen 2013 |
Not long after, Reed and his song Why Can't I be Good rumbled across the screen in Wim Wenders' cinematic sequel to Wings of Desire - Far Away So Close. Lou Reed's future wife, performance artist, composer and musician Laurie Anderson, also provided powerful music for the film. On a recent artistic excursion to Berlin, memories of these two films and Reed's album Berlin brought to light elements of the city that I had missed in the past.
Much like an author will write about an event or a place to learn what they feel, I will create a series of artworks to understand what I have seen. I pushed my interaction with Berlin into a recent ongoing series of monotypes fueled partly by the visions of Lou Reed, Wim Wenders, Bertolt Brecht, and David Bowie,
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Gregg Chadwick Brecht's Song 30"x22" monotype on paper 2011 |
+30%22x22%22+monotype+on+paper+2011.jpg) |
Gregg Chadwick Rauch Licht (Smoke Light) 30"x22" monotype on paper 2011 |
'I said, 'Who is that?' Reed recalled. 'So we set out to find him, and he was a few blocks away as it turns out.' ''
Lou Reed invited Antony to tour with him throughout 2003, and every night Antony would sing Candy Says, Reed's haunting tribute to Candy Darling. Caught in the video below, Lou Reed, one of the most influential musicians of the rock era, looks across towards Antony with an expression of pride and wonder. Lou seems mesmerized by what he described as Antony's double tracking and unusual harmonies. Reed had said that he could listen to Antony sing all day. In this video we witness a legend passing on his wisdom and inspiration to another.
Antony and Lou Reed Perform Candy Says
More Videos Below:
Lou Reed & David Bowie Discuss Reed's Album Transformer
in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"
In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1989, Lou Reed explained that he and Bruce Springsteen were both recording albums at the Record Plant in New York City when an engineer suggested inviting Bruce over to record the "Slipaway" vocals on Reed's song Street Hassle. The last line was Reed's, written with Springsteen's Born to Run in mind:
Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay
More at:
Lou Reed: The Rolling Stone Interview
Antony Finds His Voice
Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay
More at:
Lou Reed: The Rolling Stone Interview
Antony Finds His Voice
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Lou Reed greets Chuck Close in front of Close's 2012 tapestry Lou
published by Magnolia Editions; photo by Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg
August 2013
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Sunday, October 13, 2013
Today - 9th Anniversary of Santa Monica Art Studios Continues!
Gregg Chadwick
Revolutions
48"x36" oil on linen 2013
Revolutions
48"x36" oil on linen 2013
Please join me today for the 9th Anniversary of the Santa Monica Art Studios!
My new painting, Revolutions, was also inspired by the amazing closing party held by Social Media Week-LA on Friday, September 27th at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.
Deep House legend Marques Wyatt kept the party going all night. Caught up in the whirl of light and music, I knew I had to get it down on canvas. Come by my studio today and see the result.
Sunday, October 13, 1-5 pm
Deep House legend Marques Wyatt kept the party going all night. Caught up in the whirl of light and music, I knew I had to get it down on canvas. Come by my studio today and see the result.
Also all of the painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and mixed media artists who call Santa Monica Art Studios home will open their working spaces for the event.
Santa Monica Art Studios
3026 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405
ph: 310.397.7449
fax: 310.397.7459
http://www.santamonicaartstudios.com
www.greggchadwick.com
3026 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405
ph: 310.397.7449
fax: 310.397.7459
http://www.santamonicaartstudios.com
www.greggchadwick.com
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Please join me tonight for the 9th Anniversary of Santa Monica Art Studios!
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| Gregg Chadwick Superstition 28"x28" oil on panel 2013
Please join me tonight for the 9th Anniversary of the Santa Monica Art Studios!
Saturday, October 12, 6-9 pm and Sunday, October 13, 1-5 pm.
More paintings will be unveiled tonight and I would love to see you!
Also all of the painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and mixed media artists who call Santa Monica Art Studios home will open their working spaces for the event.
Santa Monica Art Studios
3026 Airport Avenue Santa Monica, CA 90405 ph: 310.397.7449 fax: 310.397.7459 http://www.santamonicaartstudios.com |
Friday, October 11, 2013
Springsteen Releases A Poignant Thank You
by Gregg Chadwick
Bruce Springsteen released a beautiful new video as a thank you to fans that sets highlights from the just completed Wrecking Ball tour to a new recording of “Dream Baby Dream.”
Video edited by Thom Zimny, shot by Chris Hilson.
Audio produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen, mixed by Bob Clearmountain.
Read Bruce's personal thank you to fans:
Bruce Springsteen released a beautiful new video as a thank you to fans that sets highlights from the just completed Wrecking Ball tour to a new recording of “Dream Baby Dream.”
Video edited by Thom Zimny, shot by Chris Hilson.
Audio produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen, mixed by Bob Clearmountain.
Read Bruce's personal thank you to fans:
Song by Song Reviews of Wrecking Ball by Gregg Chadwick:
Monday, October 07, 2013
9th Anniversary of Santa Monica Art Studios on Saturday, October 12, 6-9 pm
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Gregg Chadwick
Mulholland Blue
24"x30" oil on linen 2013
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Please join me for the 9th Anniversary of Santa Monica Art Studios on Saturday, October 12, 6-9 pm and Sunday, October 13, 1-5 pm.
I will be giving a sneak peek of my new artwork and would love to see you!
Also all of the painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and mixed media artists who call Santa Monica Art Studios home will open their working spaces for the event.
Also all of the painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and mixed media artists who call Santa Monica Art Studios home will open their working spaces for the event.
Hope to see you soon.
Gregg
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Gregg Chadwick
Vanishing Point
30"x40" oil on canvas 2013
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Santa Monica Art Studios
3026 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405
ph: 310.397.7449
fax: 310.397.7459
http://www.santamonicaartstudios.com
3026 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405
ph: 310.397.7449
fax: 310.397.7459
http://www.santamonicaartstudios.com
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