Speed of Life

Donald Sultan Spring 1999 "Robert Creeley is an artist’s poet....I think of him as one of the most  thoughtful poets ever to explore this complex relationship between the eye and the object."  - Donald Sultan, 1999 "(Battery) There" Wherever it was, I took this place To be in mind as well as there Where persons walked with muffled forms, Marked by the high sky's yellow glare. The measured look placed all in squares, Boxed by a distance fixed in space. Lampposts blackened against the day. The shuffled passage of persons faded. The building, it seemed, they would never           get to. Its vertical strips of window reflected Light from a world they might have heard of, But, try as they would, they would           never reach. - Robert Creeley From the New York Public Library: "Over his lifetime Robert Creeley explored the profound connections between visual art and creative writing in collaborations with artists such as Georg Base...

Gregg Chadwick Speed of Life Study 33"x20" monotype 2005 From the San Francisco Art Institute Art Auction The annual San Francisco Art Institute Art Auction will be held Saturday, April 2, at SomArts, 934 Brannan St., in San Francisco. Works donated by such artists as Marcel Dzama, Jay DeFeo, Lynda Benglis,Gregg Chadwick, Imogen Cunningham, David Ireland, Annie Leibovitz, Larry Thomas, and Charles Hobson will be offered to the highest bidder. The range in value is expected to be $150 to $15,000 for the works. In addition to paintings, works on paper, photographs, and sculpture, other items to be auctioned include art-related travel tours, restaurant gift certificates, and fine wines. The reception and silent auction begin at 5:00 P.M., and the live auction commences at 7:00 P.M. The auctioneer is Malcolm Barber, from Bonhams & Butterfields. SKYY Vodka will sponsor the open bar. Co-chairs of the event are Nicole Fife and Will Wick (Art Auction Committee) and Caro...

A wonderful discussion is continuing on the place of arts writing and elitism in contemporary art. From Mark Vallen's art for a change "A poet living in Southern California made a few points I’ve been wanting to touch upon. Although the poet practices a discipline apart from that of the visual artist, the two are linked in many ways. When artists malign the public for having ‘bad taste’, or when critics say that ‘art is not for everyone’, they fail to see how this is a problem of acculturation. For instance, in much of Latin America crowds fill stadiums during poetry festivals, while such an event is impossible to envision for the US: “I wish I had been present at the forum because the same thing is happening in the world of poetry. Some academics say that poetry is not for everyone. But how come that is not so in many other countries? I grew up in Persia and poetry was in our blood. In the smallest villages, even the illiterate could recite poetry by heart. In Afghanistan the...

Gerard Bourgeois Après le Bain 41" x 54" oil on canvas 2005 Currently on view at the Sarah Bain Gallery in Brea, California is a new collection of paintings by Gerard Bourgeois. These seemingly Degas inspired images of a woman at the bath are rich in painterly nuance accomplished by a rigorous process of painting, readjusting, overpainting, sanding, scraping down and finishing. Like a frescoed wall eroded over time, the images in Gerard's paintings emerge from the accumulation of paint. The history of the painting, with its ghosts and pentimenti, is the painting. Gerard's work is extremely sophisticated, notice the nuances of hip and shoulder, yet these paintings ring true emotionally. Based on intimate moments with his wife, the paintings in this exhibition are not mere exercises involving painter and model, but instead portray an intimacy normally found in the cinema. Gerard was raised in the South Pacific on the island of Vanuatu. Like a reverse Gauguin,...

“The Bias of Costume Design” a lecture by Oscar & Tony Nominated, Emmy Award Winning Costume Designer JULIE WEISS Sunday, April 3rd, 2005 6:30 PM On The Re-Defining of Beauty Through Costume films include: Frida American Beauty 12 Monkeys Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas and many others •The costume as part of the character…or •The character as part of the costume •Can the costume dress the spirit •How does the costume help the written word? •The loss of individuality through dress •The definition of the veil as privacy or ownership •Is a trend without a story nothing more than a blink? $5 donation RSVP 310/ 397-7449 Lecture held in ARENA 1 GALLERY 3026 Airport Avenue Santa Monica, CA 90405 hangarstudios@verizon.net 310 397 7449 phone 310 397 7459 fax

Update: RB Kitaj Exits R.B. Kitaj Los Angeles no. 20 1990-2003 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia "Don't listen to the fools who say either that pictures of people can be of no consequence or that painting is finished. There is much to be done. It matters what men of good will want to do with their lives." -RB Kitaj We are fortunate to have Kitaj back in Los Angeles. Much like Alex and Jane Eliot, Kitaj should be declared a living national treasure. Almost thirty years ago Kitaj curated an exhibition, for the Arts Council of Great Britain, entitled The Human Clay. Let me be the first to propose a new exhibition incorporating Kitaj's School of London with our new - School of L.A. The School of London - School of L. A. connection is a natural one with Kitaj and Hockney working here and inspiring a whole new generation of artists. In the catalog essay for the original Human Clay exhibition, Kitaj wrote, "If some of the strange and fascinat...

photo courtesy Heritage Watch "There is not a single site that is not affected," said Helen Jessup, the founder of Friends of Khmer Culture, describing the looting of Cambodia's artistic treasures. "The Western collectors continue to be as guilty as those who do this." -Jane Perlez in the New York Times Jane Perlez' New York Times article, on the looting of Angkor Wat , shed light on a growing problem in Cambodia and Thailand - the defacement and looting of national treasures for collector's cash. Hidden in the article, a single photo credit, is the identity of an organization that refuses to accept these events as inevitable. Headed by Dr. Dougald O'Reilly, Heritage Watch is actively promoting a series of measures to combat looting and the international trade in stolen art: "The initial phase of HeritageWatch’s projects will focus on education. By targeting a broad spectrum of Cambodian society and visitors to Cambodia we hope to sl...

Richard Diebenkorn "Ocean Park No. 54" 100" x 81" oil on canvas 1972 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art "There is a kind of light on Diebenkorn's stretch of coastline - mild, high and ineffably clear, descending like a benediction on the ticky-tack slopes just before the fleeting sunset drops over Malibu - that is all but unique in North America, and Diebenkorn's paintings always appear to be done in terms of it. It is part of their signature." -Robert Hughes on Diebenkorn, from "Nothing if Not Critical" I think of Diebenkorn almost every evening when I step out of my studio for some air and catch the late afternoon light glowing on the horizon. The WWII era hangar at the Santa Monica Airport that houses my studio brings to mind a sense of the American space found in Edward Hopper, who was a major early influence on Diebenkorn. But the sea-light tempers the tight ruled architectural structure with Bonnard-like fluctuations of ...

Leonardo da Vinci Woman's Head Almost in Profile  "Since the time of Pliny the Elder unfinished works were cherished because they seemed to reveal the thoughts of the artist. In the Renaissance, Leonardo honored the sketch as capturing the very instant of inspiration....Inspiration thus was valued as something even more urgent and vital than the conceptual planning of a work of art." From Peter Sutton's catalog essay accompanying the exhibition, "Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens": In the past few years, two exhibitions have captured my attention because of the light they shed on the process of creation. "Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman" was on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York during the frigid winter of 2003. The current exhibition, "Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens", at the Berkeley Art Museum at the University of California continues this theme. Both da Vinci's ...

"Contemptuous of the Insults" Goya 1816-1820 From: "A Revolutionary Age: Drawing in Europe, 1770–1820" organized by the Getty as a companion exhibition to the traveling exhibition " Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile" "Sometimes the most determined of invaders, equipped with strong armies and copious intelligence about its enemy can make myopic blunders that later seem close to madness" Robert Hughes, from "Goya"- on Napoleon's invasion of Spain Two years into our debacle in Iraq it is helpful to turn to art and history for some perspective. Napoleon invaded and occupied Spain from 1808 to 1813 prompting Goya's series of etchings, "The Disasters of War", and a related group of drawings . Currently on view in the Getty is a small, ink wash drawing from this period depicting a modish, probably anti-monarchist Spaniard (note the outfit- no pretensions to court style). He mockingly doffs his hat to two miniatu...

"The list of foreign writers, artists and intellectuals who, at one time or another, have been denied entry to the United States on ideological grounds is a long one. It includes English novelist Graham Greene, Italian playwright Dario Fo, and French actor Yves Montand, as well as Nobel-prize-winning authors." -Joanne Mariner Find Law columnist and human rights attorney Joanne Mariner analyzes the case of Dora Maria Tellez, a Nicaraguan historian and former Sandinista official who was recently denied a U.S. visa. Tellez was barred from entering the U.S. for her purported involvement in terrorist acts, but Mariner argues that the decision to bar Tellez had little to do with national security and everything to do with politics: Playing Politics with Visas

Bouquet photo by Gregg Chadwick From Judge Richard Kramer's decision: "The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional. In 1948 California's statutory ban on interracial marriages was challenged as violating the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. Advocates of the racial ban asserted that because historically and culturally, blacks had not been permitted to marry whites, the statute was justified. This argument was rejected by the court." Judge Kramer continues,"Simply put, same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited solely because California has always done so before."

photo by Gregg Chadwick "In ads, displays, altars, graphic design, fashion, magazines, signage, architecture, television, movies, web sites, on and on we’re being addressed and coddled and seduced and terrorized and we can't talk about it because we don’t have words for it. Visual "language" is a one way communication." -David Byrne, entry from david byrne's tour journal I was at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles yesterday and was struck by the tortured language used in the wall labels. As soon as the text moved from historical information - artist, date, place, and provenance- the thoughts grew murky. Some of it is art historical posturing. But part of the difficulty is the lack of a contemporary vocabulary that engages visual communication as well as verbal communication. Yes, we are bombarded with visual stimulii. But the typical response from art critics such as Kenneth Baker, who writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, is to declare that this visu...

gregg chadwick temple of the mind (for montien boonma) 60"x28" oil on linen 2005 Ordinary men hate solitude. But the master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness,realizing he is one with the whole universe. Lao-Tzu, Tao-te-Ching I am currently gathering a group of paintings together for my next exhibition which opens on May 6th, 2005 at the Art Rental & Sales Gallery, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. The opening reception will run from 6:30-8:30 and will be held in the Leo S. Bing Center, Lower Level at LACMA. These new paintings are appreciations of the deep mystery of life and acknowledge the connection that exists between all existence. The exhibition will run from May 6th through June 9th. The gallery is open 11am - 4 pm Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday Closed Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Phone: 323-857-6500 Art

An international art incident seems to be brewing this week complete with gold, royalty, theft, smuggling and muck-raking journalism. A gold crown on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of "The Kingdom of Siam" exhibition, currently at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, appears to have been looted from a crypt in the historical city of Ayutthaya in 1957. It entered the Philadelphia Museum of Art's collection in 1982. After Jom Patch, from the Thai network ITV, reported last week that the crown might have been looted in the '50's from a sacred chamber at the Buddhist temple of Wat Ratchaburana at Ayutthaya, a furor erupted in Thailand. From Jesse Hamlin at the San Francisco Chronicle- "I am kind of brokenhearted,'' says Forrest McGill, the museum's chief curator, a Thai art scholar who wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan on the kingdom of Ayutthaya. "A group of American and Thai scholars has ...

Gregg Chadwick Of Sleep and Skies 33"x20" monotype 1999 To be auctioned on Saturday, March 5th at the Monterey Museum of Art Benefit Courtesy the  Lisa Coscino Gallery & the Artist MARCH 5 Art Lovers' Benefit. 6-10 p.m. Saturday, March 5 at the Highlands Inn, Carmel. Food, entertainment and music. A live art auction will benefit the Monterey Museum of Art's educational programs. Tickets are $125 per person. Auction artwork may be previewed and absentee bids can be placed until Feb. 28. The art is in the Buck Gallery at the Monterey Museum of Art, 559 Pacific St., Monterey. Information: 372-5477, ext. 66.

Jared Diamond's new book, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" will prove to be as influential for this generation as Rachel Carson's, "Silent Spring" was to the embryonic environmental movement of the early 1960's. In "Collapse", Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" examines the downfall of some of history's greatest civilizations This is an important book and President Bush better be reading it right now. Unlike most books of the moment, Diamond's "Collapse" is brilliantly written and persuasively argued. Diamond takes an unstinting look at the failures of past societies - from the deforestation and eventually depopulation of Easter Island to the vanishing civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. Jared argues that,"environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were ...

The exhibition "To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen" organized by Chester Arnold at the College of Marin has now traveled to Syracuse University. Photo by Ashley McDowell More than 1,400 paintings of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq since March 2003 line the first floor wall of Syracuse University's Shaffer Art Building. The initial “Faces of the Fallen” originated when Chester Arnold at the College of Marin was moved by a story in The New York Times on U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. Faculty and students at the college painted, drew and produced more than 1, 100 portraits of soldiers killed since the war began. Stephen Zaima, professor of painting in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, arranged to bring the exhibit to Syracuse University. Students, faculty, staff and Syracuse community members will paint an additional 350 portraits of soldiers who have died since the exhibit began at the College of Marin in November 2004. All of the portraits in th...

Currently at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is the exhibition- THE KINGDOM OF SIAM: THE ART OF CENTRAL THAILAND, 1350-1800 The exhibition is the first to focus on art from Thailand’s lost kingdom of Ayutthaya, and the first exhibition of classical art from Thailand shown in the United States in more than thirty years. This exhibition is rich in spiritual and artistic inspiration. The works are exhibited in chronological order, and according to the curators (classical Thai art authority Dr. Forrest McGill, the Asian Art Museum’s Chief Curator and Wattis Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art and M. L. Pattaratorn Chirapravati, Assistant Professor of Asian Art, California State University, Sacramento): three major themes are explored: the development of a distinct national culture; cosmopolitanism and the importance of trade; and art as an instrument of royal power. On the day I visited, the galleries housing the traveling exhibition were crowded, yet hushed. Two Thai ...

"There is indeed a downtown POV here in NY and elsewhere that likes to guard its favors. Downtown tastemakers will quietly rave about something or someone until that music or art achieves a relative popularity- then it is denigrated as having "been better when I first saw them". A lot of alt music publications and websites share this weird snobbism, it's a way of establishing a little in-crowd." -David Byrne, blog entry 01/30/05 from david byrne's tour journal at the met photo by Gregg Chadwick I have been discussing the idea of artist and audience recently with a diverse group of fellow artists and collectors. David Byrne's take on downtown tastemakers seems quite apt. The importance of being the first to find a new artist and then to quickly denigrate them as their popularity grows seems to have a relation to our contemporary inundation with advertising campaigns extolling the new and the fresh, as well as our fear of aging or worst of all-irr...

Tonight's Oscars shed light on many fine performances. I was especially taken with Jamie Foxx's speech during the acceptance of his best actor award and Jorge Drexler's off the cuff rendition of "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" from "The Motorcycle Diaries" which won best song. The film I am most intrigued with is Zana Briski and Ross Kaufmann's "Born Into Brothels" which won best doc. Summary follows from A.O.Scott's review in the New York Times: "Zana Briski, a New York photojournalist, spent several years in the red light district of Calcutta, where she ran a photography class for the children of prostitutes, encouraging them to document the squalor and the vibrant humanity that surrounded them. The seven children featured in this lovely documentary are not only Ms. Briski's subjects, but her collaborators, and it is thrilling to watch them discover their own artistic talents. This flowering is counterposed with a chronicle of M...

Vietnam Women's Memorial In honor of the 11,500 women who served with the US forces in Vietnam. Most as nurses or connected to medical units. Dedicated in 1993 as part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall.

by Gregg Chadwick The latest California actor turned governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has picked a battle that he can not win. Arnold is a cartoon warrior. His opponents up to now have been mainly celluloid villains and opinion poll watching politicos. What Arnold has found out in his rash decision to issue an emergency order rolling back nursing ratios in emergency rooms is that California's top nurses are tenacious and brilliant: "Arnold behaves like an arrogant patriarch with respect to women's occupations," said Rose Ann De Moro, executive director of the California Nurses Association. "Nurses, teachers, home health workers -- it's vulgar how he's run roughshod over them. He's arrogant, and he's a bully." The AP reports how these events started "in December, when a small group of nurses gathered at a state women's conference to protest Schwarzenegger's decision to side with hospitals and limit the state's nur...

by Gregg Chadwick Hunter S. Thompson's recent self-inflicted death brought to mind Elliott Smith's tragic suicide as well as Kurt Cobain's and Mark Rothko's from years before. We mourn their loss and as Moby says about Hunter on his blog- "the world is a lesser place without you." But our society also sneers at those who take their own lives- confusing mental illness with cowardice. The visionary artist David Best will have none of that and his Temple of Honor constructed at the Burning Man arts festival in 2003 was created and burned as a contemporary, propitiatory offering of sorts for all those who have committed suicide. The interior of the Temple of Honor was lined with handwritten names, pictures, photos and poems for the lost. These scraps were burned with our prejudices for those whose internal struggles proved too much. We miss Hunter's ragged wit and Elliott's soulful Beatlesque music and Kurt's fiery presence and Rothko's vision....

by Gregg Chadwick I just got back from a weekend at Joshua Tree with a group of writers and actors. We talked deeeply about the process of creation. And I spoke about what inspires me. The writer Phil Cousineau would describe my processs of artistic discovery as "pulling moments" from the hustle of life. Each of these pulled moments undergoes scrutiny and at times reverie. Some become a source for new work. For me the desert landscape encouraged visual metaphors. The sweep of the huge rock formations reminded me of the curve of a woman's back- a sleek movement across a canvas perhaps. Now it is up to me to carry these thoughts into the work. Gregg Chadwick Silk 38"x48" oil on linen 2002 

"Intolerance is the father of illusion and evil deeds.Tolerance is not its opposite; tolerance is neutral. The opposite of intolerance is creative imagination, sympathetically exercised in the service of ever illusive truth. The people I trust and admire take that path. Scholars, scientists, priests, and philosophers have helped guide me ... A fiery legion of artists and writers flung wide the gates and beckoned my near- sighted soul to go deeper" -Alexander Eliot, "The Timeless Myths" esprit d'escalier 30"x20" monotype 2005 inspired by the vision of alex and jane eliot In Japan, individuals of extraordinary talent and vision are recognized as living national treasures as they live out their later years. The American intellectual couple Alexander and Jane Eliot should be given honorary Japanese citizenship and awarded that honor. Recently when I met with Alex and Jane in their warm Venice bungalow I was struck by their graciousness and humility...

Bob Marley would have turned sixty today. Marley's life was brief but his legacy has been long and widespread. His music brought the hopes and dreams of the African diaspora into homes and clubs worldwide and was influential in dispelling the notion that important music was created only in the economic powers of Western Europe and the United States. Marley's gift was to cast the music of rebellion into infectious rhythms that lifted the spirit without abandoning the reality of political struggle in an unjust world. "In this great future, you can't forget your past." -Bob Marley, "No Woman, No Cry" In Kingston, Jamaica and for the first time in The Rastafarian holy land of Ethiopia crowds gathered to hear Bob Marley's songs of freedom and his hope for a united Africa. The Associated Press reported that in Ethiopia's capital- Addis Ababa -tens of thousands attended a memorial concert entitled "Africa Unite'' after one of Marley...

Chester Arnold, the visionary Bay Area painter who exhibits at the Catherine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, has inspired his students at the College of Marin to create a moving exhibition of memorial portraits of American troops killed in action in Iraq. According to the San Francisco Chronicle Chester Arnold encouraged his students to take on the project after the United States military death toll in Iraq reached one thousand killed in action, "Perhaps ‘Faces’ can change the political debate,” said Chester Arnold. “Instead of ‘red states vs. blue states,’ I hope that we can find common ground as we did after September 11th.” In the College of Marin’s “To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen” exhibit art students and faculty have painted portraits of American troops killed in Iraq – more than 1200. From the College of Marin's website: “Faces” has tapped into a river of emotion in towns and communities across America, many of which have brothers, sisters, m...

Update: Chapel to be torn down today- Thursday, February 3rd Throughout the day yesterday, people came to see, photograph and touch the towering structure. Some left notes tucked in the building's walls complimenting the work. "What a wonderful temple!!! I love everything about it. Please let it stay!!!" read a note signed "Sharon." Some were in Spanish, such as one signed by Carlos Diaz that described the chapel as "bonito," or pretty. by Gregg Chadwick David Best - Chapel of the Laborer, San Rafael photo by Alan Dep David Best set out to build a temporary chapel for day laborers in San Rafael, California, "I wanted to break into a poor community, to build a central location where the laborers could reflect," said Best to Leslie Fulbright of the San Francisco Chronicle. "But the city has made us all illegal -- the Virgin Mary, the day laborers and me." David Best Temple of Honor - Burning Man 2003 pho...

by Gregg Chadwick Raising the Red Flag Over the Reichstag, Berlin May 2, 1945 photo by Yevgeny Khaldei Today near the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp world leaders gathered to remember the camp's liberation in 1945 by the Red Army. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke proudly of the Soviet soldiers who gave themselves to free Auschwitz: "They switched off the ovens, they saved Krakow," Vladimir Putin said of the Soviet soldiers. But Putin also said there was still much to be ashamed of in the current situation."We unfortunately still see signs of anti-Semitism in our country." I am reminded of the great Russian war photographer Yevgeny Khaldei. I had the honor of meeting him almost ten years ago when the end of the cold war seemed to mark an era of future peace, Yevgeny's body was starting to fail but his mind was sharp and his descriptions of the struggle against the Nazis were vivid. As a war photographer,Yevgeny a...

White Noise 60"x60" oil on linen 2002 Don DeLillo's first film, "Game 6", is being screened at Sundance tonight. For those in Park City this evening find your way to a ticket. DeLillo is the masterful novelist whose work includes Underworld, Mao II, The Body Artist and White Noise (which inspired my painting of the same title). The film sounds intriguing and like much of DeLillo's work the screenplay is darkly humorous. Michael Keaton stars as a playwright and lifelong Red Sox fan who skips out on his new play's opening night, October 25, 1986, to catch Game 6 of the World Series. While a merciless, gun toting critic, played by Robert Downey Jr. views the play in disguise, Michael Keaton watches in horror as his beloved Red Sox fall to the Mets. In the original draft, discussed in an interview with Don DeLillo by Jennifer Altman in the Los Angeles Times, the playwright and the critic eventually engage in an artist's gunfight (doesn't C...

Gregg Chadwick ciudad de la memoria 38"x38" oil on linen 2005 Private Collection, Beverly Hills At times a work of art from years before still speaks directly to the present moment. I was reading Neruda today miles away from the coronation in D.C. This mix of Neruda's words and my most recent painting, "Ciudad de la Memoria", seemed to spark something new and important while at the same time bringing light to America's dark shadows. "La United Fruit Co." Cuando sonó la trompeta, estuvo todo preparado en la tierra y Jehová repartió el mundo a Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda, Ford Motors, y otras entidades: la Compañía Frutera Inc. se reservó lo más jugoso, la costa central de mi tierra, la dulce cintura de América. Bautizó de nuevo sus tierras como "'Repúblicas Bananas", y sobre los muertos dormidos, sobre los héroes inquietos que conquistaron la grandeza, la libertad y las banderas, establec...

-gregg chadwick, buddha's hand 2004 We spoke of the tsunami in an L.A. pub last night. Over the sound system the piano intro to "Let it Be" stopped our conversation. Tentatively, yet without prompting, we sang together the first line,"When I find myself in times of trouble..." It was a brief moment but it cut through the evening. The conversation veered to John Lennon's murder and then on to the small disasters in all our lives. I looked around the room, a collection of friends celebrating life. Smiles in our eyes as the little kids at our table drew their own inner worlds. A ten year old lost in a book, i-pod buds in his ears filtering out our musical memories as he created his own. Across the room an older couple sipped wine and whispered to each other. It was as if we all were in the dining car on a train, heading for separate destinations, yet for a brief moment brought together. This random collection of faces would never be together again. Someday ...

By the Sea Stretching into the distance the sea swallows a hundred rivers for thousands of miles the spray joins the waves to the sky -Muso Soseki (translation: W.S. Merwin) I'm reading the poems of Muso Soseki today, a Japanese poet born in Ise in 1275, ten years after Dante. Ise is on the coast far to the west of what was then Edo and the sea has a real presence. We tend to sentimentalize the ocean now, travel is easier and at times it seems that we have harnessed the massive power of the tides, currents and waves. A sense of ease disappeared on December 26th as a massive shift of tectonic plates off of Java sent a wall of water that swallowed coastlines for thousands of miles, engulfing rich and poor: Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and Christians. - kenro izu, borobudur, java Kenro Izu's palladium photograph of Java is timeless. The landscape stripped of living human presence. Java as a museum - ancient, yet yielding to the forces of wind, rain, and time....

A foreign boy is carried by a Thai rescue worker after being evacuated from a nearby island resort off Krabi, southern Thailand. (Roslan Rahman AFP/Getty Images) tsunami help chiang mai disaster relief info sumankumar.com bbc how to send help red cross disaster relief - via amazon jeff ooi- malaysia unicef  

gregg i should write an official letter of thanks for your blog because (of) the good news! ... I can't thank you enough for your efforts! We won! If it was not for people like you who wrote letters I am sure this change would not have occurred. Thanks Emily

"Everyone has their Vietnam. Everyone has their war. May we embark together on a pilgrimage of ending these wars and truly living peace." -Claude Anshin Thomas, "At Hell's Gate" gregg chadwick the 49th day 38"x38" oil on linen 2004 collection of bill badalato Listening to Bono and Pavarotti sing "Miss Sarajevo" as I stretch new canvases for the upcoming year. The fresh smell of new linen mixes in the room with the fragrance of a just pulled espresso. The light this morning is crisp and warm. My world seems to be at peace until a line from the song slips into my mind :"Is there a time for keeping your head down, for getting on with your day?" I can picture Sarajevo in black snow. One by one, men, women and children race across a broad street. I can hear the crack of a sniper's rifle in my mind... That imagined gunshot haunts me. A taunting reply to my question "How does one paint peace?" I pick up Claude Ans...

"Our task now is to mend our broken world... And what our world needs now is not belief, not certainty, but compassionate action and practically expressed respect for the sacred value of all human beings, even our enemies" -Karen Armstrong, "The Spiral Staircase" gregg chadwick a balance of shadows 72"x96" oil on linen 2004

I wish to provide you with the following official statement regarding the upcoming exhibition by Emily Jacir:       "Wichita State University is aware of the discussion generated by the scheduled exhibition of work by artist Emily Jacir at the Ulrich Museum of Art.  The University is committed to going forward with the exhibition without conditions or limitations that could be considered to compromise the integrity of Ms. Jacir's work as an artist.  The University appreciates the widespread interest in the artist and the exhibition." You are welcome to forward this e-mail as appropriate. Thank you, Elizabeth King Vice President for University Advancement Wichita State University --- more detailed information can be found at: newsgrist from the floor deep appreciation to newsgrist, from the floor, kevin mullins, elizabeth king, david butler and deborah gordon for helping this important exhibition proceed as planned...

emily jacir from "where we come from" At times the subtext of events and images from Palestine to San Francisco to Berlin helps illumine an artwork, its inspiration and possibly its meaning. Emily Jacir's recent project "Where We Come From" is concerned with the ideas of memory and exile. As a Palestinian-American, Emily is able to travel in a comparatively free manner across and through the Palestinian-Israeli borderlands using her US passport as a sort of get out of jail free card. With this ability Emily was able to create an art project in which she asked exiled Palestinians: “If I could do anything for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” Many of the requests would be considered simple, almost banal, if they were not impossible for the exiles to fulfill: “Go to my mother’s grave in Jerusalem on her birthday and put flowers and pray.” “Drink the water in my parents’ village.” Emily journeyed with US passport and cameras in hand in an attempt...