An Elegy for Lou Reed

by Gregg Chadwick

I wrote this when I heard of Lou Reed's death in 2013. Three years on the thoughts still stand. Reposted as an elegy to an inspirational figure for so many. 

"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.

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. 

Gregg Chadwick
Ghosts of New Amsterdam
24"x36" oil on linen 2013

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, 

Gregg Chadwick
Brecht's Song
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

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. 

Gregg Chadwick
Rauch Licht (Smoke Light)
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

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"

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

  
Lou Reed greets Chuck Close in front of Close's 2012 tapestry Lou 

    published by Magnolia Editions; photo by Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

August 2013

Tonight! Art & Home: An Evening with LA Family Housing - October 26, 2016 7-9pm

Tonight!

My painting “Blush Response" will be available at

Art & Home: 

An Evening with Los Angeles Family Housing to benefit LA Family Housing.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016  7-9pm

    

Room & Board 

Helm's Bakery Building 

8707 Washington Boulevard, CA 90232

Gregg Chadwick

Blush Response

10"x10" oil on canvas 2015

In collaboration with Angeleno magazine, please join us for a special art show at Room & Board in Culver City. 

Over 100 local, contemporary artists have donated artworks in support of LA Family Housing. (LAFH). 

Dedicated to helping families and individuals transition out of homelessness and poverty, LAFH offers a range of housing opportunities enriched with supportive services.

Artwork on display in the showroom will be available for purchase for $400! 

If you have always wanted a Chadwick, this is a wonderful opportunity to get an artwork at an affordable price and to support an important cause.

Please RSVP at http://www.roomandboard.com//events/LAFH 

More at:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1094088290638897/

https://www.facebook.com/lafhonline

David Bowie - Killing a Little Time (from Lazarus [Original Cast Recordi...

Reading Jana Prikryl's "The After Party"

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 time. From the former Czechoslovakia to the "Thirty Thousand Islands" of the Georgian Bay in the Canadian realm of Lake Huron, Prikryl creates worlds of time-images. I urge you to carry "The After Party" with you. Read it on the train. Find a favorite passage while waiting in line at the pharmacy. Share it with your local barista. The book is that good. Prikryl reminds us that a life is made up of moments, upon moments, upon moments.

Happy National Coming Out Day

John Lewis ‏@repjohnlewis  1h1 hour ago

It doesn't matter if we are straight or gay or transgender--we are one people, we are one family, we are one love. #NationalComingOutDay

From HRC: Every year on National Coming Out Day, we celebrate coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) or as an ally. Today, Oct. 11, 2016, we mark the 28th anniversary of National Coming Out Day.
28 years ago, on the anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, we first observed National Coming Out Day as a reminder that one of our most basic tools is the power of coming out. One out of every two Americans has someone close to them who is gay or lesbian. For transgender people, that number is only one in 10.
Coming out - whether it is as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or allied - STILL MATTERS. When people know someone who is LGBTQ, they are far more likely to support equality under the law. Beyond that, our stories can be powerful to each other.
In honor of National Coming Out Day, HRC honors all who have come out as LGBTQ or as a straight ally for equality – that takes bravery, and we commend you.Every person who speaks up changes more hearts and minds, and creates new advocates for equality.
Watch HRC's National Coming Out Day 2016 video:

Tonight! - Please Join Me as I Open My Studio at the 12th Anniversary of the Santa Monica Art Studios

Gregg Chadwick
Stealing Home (Jackie Robinson)
8"x8" oil on canvas 2016

In honor of the Major League Baseball playoffs and my Grandpa Joseph Chadwick - my new small painting "Stealing Home (Jackie Robinson)" 

Jackie Robinson-UCLA grad, civil rights warrior, Brooklyn Dodger, all around hero. Painting will be on view this weekend at the Santa Monica Art Studios 12th Anniversary  

At the Santa Monica Art Studios, I am part of a community of artists - driven to create, share knowledge and experience, and help the community at large. 

This weekend, I would be honored to have you join the long list of visitors to my studio #15 at the Santa Monica Art Studios.

Saturday, October 8 from 6-9pm 

Sunday, October 9 from 1-5pm

3026 Airport Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA 90405

#art #newyork #Dodgers #painting #baseball

The Bookmobile

Do yourself a favor & watch this beautiful video from #Storycorps on how libraries save lives. http://bit.ly/2dyAkrJ  #LibrariesTransform

Bono Takes on Trump in San Francisco

by Gregg Chadwick

Incredible & riveting political statement as @u2's Bono creates a pseudo conversation with @realDonaldTrump in a surprise set at Dreamfest! pic.twitter.com/Aeq5tXXBGP

— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) October 6, 2016

Bono and I have a bit of a history with Bullet the Blue Sky and its deeply held meaning in terms of a vision of America. I wrote Bono in 2008, the night before his planned meeting with then VP candidate Sarah Palin. (Full letter here- Bullet the Blue Sky ) 

I asked Bono then to "please remember what America means. Please remember your inspiration to write and perform "Bullet the Blue Sky" as you watched the Reagan administration's support of Salvadoran death squads and Nicaraguan contras. America is not torture, Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. America is the promise of hope and liberty." 

Last night in San Francisco, Bono spoke truth to a candidate in love with power and himself.  They posted a video of the song with a simple title - Liberty... 

Bravo to U2!

You Are Cordially Invited to Gregg Chadwick's October Events and Exhibitions!

Please Join Me This Upcoming Weekend as I Open My Studio

at the 12th Anniversary of the Santa Monica Art Studios. 

In my twelve years at the Santa Monica Art Studios my artwork has been included in more than 70 exhibitions worldwide, 

including numerous community oriented benefit auctions.

I often open up my studio to visiting students, community members, scholars, and international guests. 

These visitors to my studio have included a bus load of Japanese Nursing Students from Tokyo, 

a visiting group of academics from the University of Verona in Italy, 

professional art restorers from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Getty Museum, 

an art meditation session with art writer Peter Clothier, 

as well as numerous visits by Santa Monica students interested in the arts and culture. 

Last year a group of around twenty young adults impacted by AIDS gathered in my studio and other studios for a moving exploration of art and personal expression. 

Also on July 8, 2015 we gathered as a community at the Santa Monica Art Studios to celebrate the life 

and mourn the passing of Olaf Pooley - actor, painter, centenarian, Santa Monica Art Studios Artist. 

At the Santa Monica Art Studios, I am part of a community of artists - driven to create, share knowledge and experience, and help the community at large. 

I would be honored to have you join the long list of visitors to my studio #15 at the Santa Monica Art Studios.

Hope to see you soon!

Saturday, October 8 from 6-9pm 

Sunday, October 9 from 1-5pm

3026 Airport Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA 90405

“Blush Response" will be available at

Art & Home: An Evening with Los Angeles Family Housing to benefit LA Family Housing.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016  7-9pm

    

Room & Board 

Helm's Bakery Building 

8707 Washington Boulevard, CA 90232

Gregg Chadwick

Blush Response

10"x10" oil on canvas 2015

In collaboration with Angeleno magazine, please join us for a special art show at Room & Board in Culver City. 

Over 100 local, contemporary artists have donated artworks in support of LA Family Housing. (LAFH). 

Dedicated to helping families and individuals transition out of homelessness and poverty, LAFH offers a range of housing opportunities enriched with supportive services.

Artwork on display in the showroom will be available for purchase for $400! 

If you have always wanted a Chadwick, this is a wonderful opportunity to get an artwork at an affordable price and to support an important cause.

Please RSVP at http://www.roomandboard.com//events/LAFH 

More at:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1094088290638897/

Hope to see you at these events!

Thanks for your interest in my art.

Gregg

www.greggchadwick.com

Gregg Chadwick

Santa Monica Art Studios - Studio #15

3026 Airport Avenue

Santa Monica, CA  90405

cell 415 533 1165

Please Register to Vote!

John LewisVerified account ‏@repjohnlewis  3m3 minutes ago

Today is #NationalVoterRegistrationDay - I was beaten, left bloody & unconscious so that every person could register and vote. Do your part.

"Register. Vote. Go out and get engaged!” —@JoeBiden #NationalVoterRegistrationDay

At UCLA

Speaking at UCLA today on Art and Social Justice. Brought my #BlackLivesMatter inspired painting along. Excited to share my thoughts and experiences with the N250 class. Thanks to Dr Pavlish and my alma mater for making me feel at home.

Creativity Unleashed

by Gregg Chadwick

Ed Catmull's "Creativity, Inc." is much like the films of Pixar itself: a balanced mix of sheer enthusiasm and careful planning. Catmull writes,"The thesis of this book is that there are many blocks to creativity, but there are active steps we can take to protect the creative process." Catmull writes about the history and vision of Pixar as well as the strategies and mechanisms that have kept the creativity flowing for an amazing run of great animated films - second only in my mind to the stunning work of the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki and his Ghibli film studios. Cattmull's book is a must read for anyone involved in the arts. From painters, to writers, to actors, to musicians, to film-makers, to game designers - all will benefit immensely from Catmull's encouragement to embrace the unknown while learning to communicate creatively.

Link here: Creativity, Inc 

Stronger Together

Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine's book "Stronger Together" begins with a powerful statement: "It has been said that America is great because America is good." Clinton and Kaine agree with that statement as do I. The book continues and reminds us that,"we face our fair share of threats and challenges." The strength of this 249 page volume is the detailed description of policy suggestions that carry the knowledge that the United States is a country of good as it creates positive change for the benefit of all its citizens.

"Stronger Together" outlines investments in job growth, clean energy, debt free college plans, reining in Wall Street, equal pay for women, expanded health coverage, LGBT rights, open internet, expanded K-12 education, fair immigration reform, national defense, women's health and reproductive rights, and more.

Hillary writes, "Americans don't say:"I alone can fix it." We say: "We'll fix it together." Clinton and Kaine's book is a blueprint of inspiration and ideas of how we as Americans will move our country forward together. Highly recommended.

Link Here: Stronger Together

Hop On Pop

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 with the added leitmotif, perhaps, of a creative vocation discovered as a child! The Dad in question is caught in the black and white photograph, below. Gregg Chadwick is today a Santa Monica-based painter whose work is widely exhibited and acclaimed. His blog is titled Speed of Life. His boyhood memory skirts subtly around the pain of separation, deflecting it first, jokingly, onto a prank played on his mother with his toys; then on a treasured book, a parting gift from Dad. But by the end, we're left in no doubt that the pain is there..."

HOP ON POP

By Gregg Chadwick

As a kid, I liked to build private worlds out of drawings that I would cut up and paste into scenes with soft plastic bugs pulled hot from my Creepy Crawlers molds. I would squirt the Plastigoop from a small bottle into the empty molds and heat them up on my Thingmaker. Once, late at night, I cut out a darkly drawn semicircle, taped it to the kitchen floorboard in our rented carriage house, and placed dark rodent Creepy Crawlers around my invented mouse hole. As a last surprise, I hid one in my mom’s coffee cup. My brother and I would get a great laugh, because my mom hates rodents of all shapes and sizes.

I woke to the baconesque smell of Tastystrips and the caramel espresso smell of Mom’s percolating coffee. She was at the stove pulling strips from the pan and lining them up on a golden, grease filled sheet of paper towel. Her coffee mug sat nearby. My brother was already at the table reading a cereal box before turning to my mom to chat about a birthday trip to the Revolutionary War encampment up at Jockey Hollow with his friend Casey Jones. Yep, the same name as the famous railroader. Our portable transistor radio was on; it should have been playing "Cannonball Express" in honor of that other Casey. I sneaked a quick glance to be sure that my mouse hole was still there with its attendant rubbery rodents. OK, the plan was still in action. I walked over to the stove and looked into my mom’s cup. I gulped as I saw myself reflected in the dark liquid.

“How’s the coffee Mom?” That sounded wrong. Was I in a Folgers commercial or something?

“Fine dear. Careful of the hot stove. Don’t burn yourself.”

I sat down without a word and quietly ate my breakfast, glancing at the line of dark Crawlers on the floor.

A honk outside interrupted the quiet and my brother jumped up to run out the door. My mom called after him, “Don’t forget your jacket.”

“It’s June Mom,” my brother said.

“So it is," said my mom as she marked off another day on the calendar.

“One day at a time,” she told me. “That’s how we get on until your Dad comes home.”

I didn’t mention the Crawlers on the floor and especially not the one in her coffee cup. She never mentioned them either. I did make some Crawlers that day for my Dad, though, and Mom and I placed them carefully in an envelope and addressed it to his Fleet Post Office address in Vietnam.

My dad didn’t really need any more bugs in the jungle. But I kept sending them anyway. They were small packages of memories. And I wanted to thank him for the going away gift he had given me before he went to war in 1965. We were in the car. I remember ripping the paper off that package like it was the wrapper on a popsicle on a hot summer day.

It was a book! I could begin to make out the title as I shredded the wrapping. "'Op on Op” peeked out at me through a hole in the paper. “I can read it all by myself Beginner Books," it said.

I tossed the decorative wrap onto the car floor and held up my prize with its aqua, white, orange, and yellow cover. “Hop on Pop” by Dr. Seuss. I laughed at the two small bears jumping on the daddy bear’s tummy. “We like to hop. We like to hop on top of pop.”

“Thank you! Thank You!” I said, in between pages.

Mission accomplished. My dad and mom smiled as we made our way back to my grandmother’s house. But I was sad, too. I knew even then that a good little Marine didn’t cry, and that my brother and I would need to be tough for Mom.  I put the book down, held my tears back and looked out the window. As if in a movie, the scenes scrolled by. Even though I had been born here, it seemed a new landscape for me. 

We would have to run our recons without Dad for quite a while. 

Full Story at: http://www.boyhoodmoments.com/2016/09/hop-on-pop.html 

A Candid Bruce Springsteen on CBS Sunday Morning

by Gregg Chadwick

Today on CBS Sunday morning, Bruce Springsteen spoke candidly about his upcoming autobiography, Born to Run, in a conversation with reporter Anthony Mason. Below is the full video and a few highlights from the interview. Full story can be found at: Bruce Springsteen,"I'm still in love with playing." Thanks to CBS Sunday Morning for this insightful glimpse into the man and his art.

Bruce Springsteen has been singing about his own life and times for more than 40 years. Now’s he’s written about them as well. Here is our own music man, Anthony Mason:

In the final dates of his international tour that ended this past week, Bruce Springsteen played one four-hour gig after another. How can he keep doing that? “I’m conditioned to do it from many, many years of experience. Don’t try it at home, kids!” he warned.

It’s the one arena where the singer, who turns 67 next week, can control the clock: “You’re looking for a particular moment, and then when you catch that, it feels so good sometimes. 

“Then time disappears, you know?”

“Where do you think your drive came from?” Mason asked.

“I believe every artist had someone who told them that they weren’t worth dirt and someone who told them that they were the second coming of the baby Jesus, and they believed ‘em both,” Springsteen replied.

“And that’s the fuel that starts the fire.”

For Springsteen, the fire started in Freehold, New Jersey, on the block around the St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church.

“Home was right up here,” the singer pointed out to Mason. “My house was here, church was there, nun’s convent, priest’s rectory. My aunt’s house was there. My other aunt’s house was right next to her.”

“The grinding power of this ruined place would never leave me,” he writes in “Born to Run,” his new autobiography, published by Simon & Schuster (a division of CBS). 

Doug and Adele Springsteen’s son found both comfort and fear there. His mother, a legal secretary, rented him his first guitar. His father, who worked at Ford, was an angry man.

“He loved me,” Springsteen writes, “but he couldn’t stand me.”

Mason joined Springsteen on a surprise visit to the school at St. Rose of Lima. He is beloved here now. It was different when he was in class.

“I’m gettin’ the willies,” he said, walking into a classroom.

“Did I read they called you ‘Springy’?” Mason asked.

“Yes. That is correct, my friend. Amongst many other things.”

“How did you do when you were here?”

“Not particularly well, you know. I didn’t fit in the box so well.”

Long after he moved away, Springsteen would drive back at times to Freehold: “I may still cruise through every once in a while.”

“What are you looking for when you do?”

“Well, they say you’re looking to make things all right again, you know? And of course, there’s no going back, you know?”

The long-haired guitar slinger who earned his stripes in the bars of Asbury Park, was signed to Columbia Records at just 22.

His first two albums did not sell well, so he poured his soul into a new song called “Born to Run”:

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run by BruceSpringsteenVEVO on YouTube

“Well, I was trying to make the greatest record you’d ever heard. The record that after you heard it, you didn’t have to hear another record, you know?”

“Born to Run” launched Bruce Springsteen. The album’s now-iconic cover also featured sax player Clarence Clemons, Bruce’s mythic sidekick. The big man’s imposing presence came to symbolize the brotherhood of the E Street Band.

Mason asked, “How would you describe your relationship with Clarence?”

45 PHOTOS

Images of Bruce Springsteen

“It was very primal,” he replied. “It was just, ‘Oh, you’re, you’re some missing part of me. You’re some dream I’m having. He was this huge force, you know? While at the same time being very fragile and very dependent himself, which is maybe what the two of us had in common. We were both kind of insecure down inside. And we both felt kind of fragile and unsure of ourselves. But when we were together we felt really powerful.

“We were very different people, you know? Clarence lived fast and loose and wild and wide-open, you know? And I tended to be a little more conservative.”

“You said offstage, you couldn’t be friends.”

“I couldn’t because it would ruin my life!” Springsteen laughed. “But Clarence could be Clarence excellently. He was very good at it.”

Until Clemons’ health went into a long decline. In 2011 he suffered a stroke and died days later. “Losing Clarence,” Springsteen writes, “was like losing the rain.”

“And it happened very quick and suddenly. And it was quite devastating,” he said.

“When something like that, that as you say kind of came magically to begin with, goes away, you’ve got to be sitting there going, ‘How do I replace this?’” Mason asked.

Full story can be found at: Bruce Springsteen,"I'm still in love with playing."
Buy the book here: Born to Run

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