$2 Show at i-5 Gallery in Los Angeles

Mat Gleason, publisher of Coagula, has curated a group show in Los Angeles which opens this week. The premise was simple. Each artist was given a $2 bill in US currency and encouraged to create an artistic interaction. My approach was historical. Thomas Jefferson graces the front of the two dollar bill. On the reverse is a depiction of Jefferson and the Continental Congress presenting the Declaration of Independence. I spent part of my childhood in Charlottesville, Virginia and as a kid loved to visit Jefferson's home at Monticello as well as the Jefferson designed campus at the University of Virginia. Before moving to Virginia my family had rendezvoused with my father in Paris as he returned from the Vietnam War. Jefferson's love of Paris and his influence on the French Revolution of 1789 was presented in detail on our tours. I was entranced with this complex figure. And also perplexed. How could a lover of liberty and the author of the Declaration of Independence justify owning slaves? I vaguely remember asking a docent this question on a tour of Monticello. In the 1960's, in the South especially, this question wasn't asked in public by adults much less a little kid. I am still trying to answer that question in my $2 artwork: How could a lover of liberty and the author of the Declaration of Independence justify owning slaves? And how could a lover of liberty and the author of the Declaration of Independence justify having sex and children with one of his slaves - Sally Hemings?

Recto:

Notes: Seen through Sally’s eyes are the words from the $2 bill- “tender and private.”
To the right of and underneath the pink skinned man the name Hemings and the words “shadow man” are written in script.

Verso:

Gregg Chadwick
Sally and the Shadow Man
Sumi-e, egg tempera, charcoal, conté, oil and gum arabic on $2 US currency 2008

Notes: The name Sally is written in a script derived from Thomas Jefferson’s own handwritten book which lists all of his slaves. The ghost of Tom Jefferson remains from John Trumball’s Declaration of Independence.


Joseph Ellis, a Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College and author of American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, (winner of the 1997 National Book Award), explains Thomas Jefferson’s affair with Sally Hemings in a recent interview in the program Frontline: Jefferson's Blood:

Frontline: For Jefferson, was race a double issue, in a sense? On one level, when he wanted to enjoy or be with Sally as a woman, he could see her as white, and fully human. But when he wanted to deny her human entitlements, he could see her as black. Was there a double convenience involved there?

Ellis: Yes, Jefferson's racial views do give him an ability to have his cake and eat it, too. On the one hand, he can control Sally Hemings, and doesn't have to worry about a relationship that's a truly equitable relationship, back and forth. And yet he can get his physical gratification and satisfactions at the same time.Jefferson is excellent at "having your cake and eating it, too." And he's excellent at then denying inside himself what he's doing. What's impossible to know is what Sally thinks and feels on her side of this relationship at this time.

Frontline: Madison (Sally and Thomas Jefferson’s son) does give some indication . . . about his experience serving in the house.

Ellis: Madison Hemings said that he felt that he was treated as one of the Hemings slaves, and that they were treated in more privileged ways than the other slaves. But he was treated as a slave. He was not treated as a member of Jefferson's family, or in the same way that Jefferson's own grandchildren were treated. And he resented that. He was the age of Jefferson's grandchildren. He's implicitly suggesting that, within the family, Jefferson never acknowledged his paternity.

From Thomas Jefferson's own account on the writing of the Declaration of Independence he explains how the passages banning slavery were deleted:
"The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho' their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."




Crane & Company has continually supplied the United States Treasury with its currency paper since 1879. The paper used for US currency is discussed on the website for NOVA: Secrets of Making Money:

"There are no wood fibers or starch in currency paper. Instead, like high quality stationery, currency paper is composed of a special blend of cotton and linen fibers. The strength comes from raw materials continuously refined until the special feel of the currency is achieved. People who handle money on a regular basis, such as bank tellers, can easily determine if a bill is counterfeit by this distinctive feel. The characteristic yellowish-green tint of U.S. currency is another distinctive feature which is, in fact, hard for color photocopiers to accurately match."


The $2 Show at i-5 GALLERY at THE BREWERY ART COLONY
2100 N. Main St., #A-9 (in the Atrium at The Brewery), Los Angeles, CA 90031

July 11 - Aug 23, 2008
Reception: Saturday, July 12th 7-10pm
Gallery hours: Fri.-Sat., 12-4pm; & by appointment.
100 artists were given a $2 Bill on which to make their masterpiece - each artwork is priced at $200 as a fundraiser for i-5 gallery. Featuring Ya Ya Chou, Anna Conti, Gregg Chadwick, Dale Dreiling, Carol Es, Mark Hix, Leora Lutz, Michael Salerno, Leigh Salgado, David Trulli, Paige Wery, An Xiao and others.

More at:
Crane & Company
NOVA: Secrets of Making Money
Jefferson's notes on the Declaration
Frontline: Jefferson's Blood
Frontline: Jefferson's Blood - Interview with Joseph Ellis
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
Monticello

Opening Today at the Julie Nester Gallery: Moving Pictures

Santa Monica artists Gregg Chadwick and Gerard Bourgeois will be exhibiting their artwork at the Julie Nester Gallery in Park City, Utah in the exhibition Moving Pictures.

The Julie Nester Gallery, named by Salt Lake Magazine as "the best gallery in Utah", celebrates its new gallery location with a group exhibition. The inaugural show features new work from each of the gallery's 35 national artists.


Gregg Chadwick
The Sound of Silk (detail) 2008

Greg Marshall in the Park Record writes:

"Since opening in 2004, the Julie Nester Gallery has specialized in contemporary art and represents mid-career and nationally recognized artists. 'We're focusing on bringing art that's never been seen in Utah. The size of the gallery gives art room to breathe', Nester said. The gallery departs from the mountain motif popular in many galleries in Park City. 'I would say it's a different level of sophistication. Some of the work here can be a little more difficult, a little more challenging.' "

Moving Pictures opens Saturday July 5, 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. The exhibition runs from July 5th-July 29th, 2008.

(The gallery also will host a champagne and caviar event on Sunday, July 13, as part of the Park City Food and Wine Festival.)

Rachid Taha Live in Los Angeles on July 12, 2008

Rachid Taha's version of the Clash's Rock el Casbah

Rachid Taha plays live in Los Angeles on July 12, 2008 as part of the free Grand Performances Series at California Plaza. The event starts at 8pm.

(Rachid Taha will also play the next afternoon at Stern Grove in San Francisco)

On 7/13/05 I wrote:


“Unity is a universal message.”
Rachid Taha

Backstage at a Clash concert in the early '80's, the young French-Algerian singer Rachid Taha pressed a demo tape of his own mix of punk, rock and middle eastern music into Joe Strummer's hands. Rachid Taha didn't hear back from the Clash. But shortly after their backstage meeting, the Clash's "Rock the Casbah" made it onto vinyl. The song could have been written by Taha. “I like Joe Strummer. We have the same obsession - freedom,” says Rachid. When he heard of Strummer's recent death, Taha recorded his own version of the Clash song: "Rock el Casbah" as a tribute.

Watching video clips during the first Iraq War, Taha heard the Clash song blared by US troops during the short engagement with Iraqi forces. – “I wanted to show that this is not a war song, but much more a peaceful song.”

Rachid Taha’s "Rock El Casbah", sung in Arabic, is a sly cover of the Clash classic and provides a nice entree into the power, intelligence and humor of his own music. Rachid Taha's stance against racism, hypocrisy and nostalgic ghetto complacency, have earned him a fearsome reputation in France, North Africa and the Arabic world.

A cultural figure with powerful views on racism and injustices in French society, his music reflects these tensions and has, in Brian Eno’s words, an energy and confidence arising out of his belief that music can still change the world.

Says Rachid: “I’m a proletarian, I’m of the people… so I’m protesting. For me the music’s a protest. So all my songs are like this because I wanted to stop making metaphors. I said it’s time to speak out now.”


Gregg Chadwick
"Medina Memories"
38"x38" oil on linen 1992-2005

Rachid Taha quoted by BBC's 'The World':

"When I hear George Bush, and when I hear Osama bin Laden, I hear two bedouin nomads. The only difference he says, is that one of them is from the desert of Texas and drives an SUV, and the other is from the desert of Saudi Arabia and rides a dromedary." Taha says Bush and bin Laden come from similar well-heeled backgrounds. And both, he says, use a similar fundamentalist rhetoric.

Taha's "Rock el Casbah" is on "Tekitoi" (Who Are You?), Rachid's first album after the September 11 attacks.The title track is sung as a dialogue between a young Frenchman and a young Algerian. They ask each other “Who are you?” This question, Taha says, “is part of the healing process. If you start to recognize that we are the same, then you don’t want to do something bad to someone else.”


Rachid Taha: Barra Barra

4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

"Did you hear the cops finally busted Madam Marie for tellin' fortunes better than they do..."

"Back in the day when I was a fixture on the Asbury Park boardwalk, I'd often stop and talk to Madam Marie as she sat on her folding chair outside the Temple of Knowledge. I'd sit across from her on the metal guard rail bordering the beach, and watched as she led the day trippers into the small back room where she would unlock a few of the mysteries of their future. She always told me mine looked pretty good - she was right. The world has lost enough mystery as it is - we need our fortunetellers. We send our condolences out to her family who've carried on her tradition. Over here on E Street, we will miss her."
--Bruce Springsteen



More at:
Madam Marie
Daniel Wolff's Excellent Book: 4th of July, Asbury Park: A History of the Promised Land

The Sound of Silk

Gregg Chadwick
The Sound of Silk
40"x90" (Triptych) oil on linen 2008

Goodnight Bush - No More Tricks

We were at Kepler's Bookstore this weekend and had a good laugh while reading Erich Origen and Gan Golan's politically inspired parody of the children's classic Goodnight Bush.

“Goodnight earth? Goodnight heir? Goodnight failures everywhere.”

In this month of graduation speeches and thoughts of the road ahead, one future date stands out: 1/20/09.
On his recent tour Bruce Springsteen has been playing the haunting title track off his new album Magic. The song is like a nightmare - the nightmare of the last eight years. Good news is at hand though, " the coming end of the worst presidency ever."

I got a coin in my palm
I can make it disappear
I got a card up my sleeve
Name it and I'll pull it out your ear
I got a rabbit in my hat
If you want to come and see
This is what will be, this is what will be

I got shackles on my wrist
Soon I'll slip 'em and be gone
Chain me in a box in the river
And I'll rise singin' this song
Trust none of what you hear
And less of what you see
This is what will be, this is what will be

I got a shiny saw blade
All I needs' a volunteer
I'll cut you in half
While you're smiling ear to ear
And the freedom that you sought's
Driftin' like a ghost amongst the trees
This is what will be, this is what will be

Now there's a fire down below
But it's comin' up here
So leave everything you know
And carry only what you fear
On the road the sun is sinkin' low
There's bodies hangin' in the trees
This is what will be, this is what will be

Copyright © 2007 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)



More at:
Goodnight Bush
New York Times on Goodnight Bush

Father's Day: Remembering Dads and Tim Russert

Politics and art are in my blood. I went to High School in Northern Virginia where the human side of government is as much a part of daily existence as a morning coffee (espresso in my case). Meet the Press on Sunday mornings was a topic of discussion throughout the week. My dad did his best to stay out of the press while others embraced the glare. I stood on the sidelines watching and making images - much as I do now.

On television it seemed that Tim Russert was happiest when he was in the thick of it. And Tim was happiest when he honored his father and his fatherhood.
On this father's day my son Cassiel is here with me as I write. And my father is in the thick of it in Africa. We send our best to Bob Chadwick, my brother Kent Chadwick, my father in law Ralph Heilemann, my brothers in law Paul Heilemann and Tom Bavlnka as well as my artistic comrades in arms Alan Caudillo, Sergio Arau, Gerard Bourgeois, Phil Cousineau, RB Morris, Sheldon Greenberg, Mikkel Aaland, Grady Harp, Rob Lee, Jay Zabriskie, Steve Joseph, Mitch Friedman, and especially on this day to Tim Russert's family. Godspeed!

“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

- wall art by Banksy

“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”
- Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, United States Supreme Court

Foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention by seeking appeal in United States courts, the Supreme Court ruled today.


Guantánamo Bay
photo by Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The New York Times reports:

"Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said: “When Congress passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006, Senator Kennedy called the act ‘fatally flawed’ and said ‘its evisceration of the writ of habeas corpus for all noncitizens is almost surely unconstitutional.’ Today, the Supreme Court agreed, and rejected the Bush administration’s blatant attempt to create a legal black hole beyond the reach of the rule of law.”

Complete text of the Supreme Court decision on Guantánamo at:

BOUMEDIENE ET AL. v. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE

UNITED STATES, ET AL.

Montford Point Marines: Make Us Proud

a documentary by Kevin R. Wright USMC

"Approximately 20,000 African American recruits received training at Montford Point Camp (less than 10% of the Marine Corps end strength) during World War II. The initial intent of the Marine Corps hierarchy was to discharge these African American Marines after the War, returning them to civilian life - leaving the Marine Corps an all-white organization. Attitudes changed and reality took hold as the war progressed. Once given the chance to prove themselves, it became impossible to deny the fact that this new breed of Marine was just as capable as all other Marines regardless of race, color, creed or National origin."

一番 あたらしい画集 PASSPORTS FROM THE REALM を プレゼントしてくださいました

Nice words from Japan:

日本での個展が開かれるのを楽しみにしています
"We hope that his exhibition would be held here in Japan someday, really."

Me too...

Thanks minestronek at lolalways.exblog.jp

Roy Lichtenstein exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery

Roy Lichtenstein
Masterpiece
Photo: Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

In the New York Times, Roberta Smith has a nice piece on the Roy Lichtenstein exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery in New York:

"This show makes especially clear how Lichtenstein’s work functions as a kind of primer in looking at and understanding the grand fiction of painting: the thought it requires, its mechanics, its final simplicity and strangeness. These great paintings convey all this in a flash of pleasure, compounded by the thrill of understanding."


Roy Lichtenstein
Girl at Piano
Photo: Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery



Coming Up: Opening at Gagosian in Beverly Hills on June 14, 2008 is Denise de la Rue's photo exhibition - Matador.

More at:
New York Times on Lichtenstein: Girls
Lichtenstein at Gagosian

"Not Everything was John Wayne, Baby": Black Marines on Iwo Jima

by Gregg Chadwick


Update: Montford Point Marines: Make Us Proud

Black Marines pose with one of the Army DUKW amphibious trucks used to bring cargo ashore and carry away the wounded for medical treatment to ships offshore. National Archives Photo 127-GW-334-114329

Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood got into a verbal dust-up at Cannes. Spike criticized Clint for not featuring any black troops in his recent World War II pictures:
Flags Of Our Fathers, which weaves together the stories of the marines who raised the flag over Iwo Jima in Joe Rosenthal's iconic photograph, and Letters From Iwo Jima, which focuses on the Japanese soldiers who fought to the death on the bitter island.

Though black Marines were not on Mount Suribachi when the flags were raised, they were caught in the thick of the battle as the official Marine Corps accounts of the assault on Iwo Jima make clear. Passages below are quoted from the USMC history of African-American marines during World War II written by Bernard C. Nalty:

"Black combat support units also took part in the assault on Iwo Jima, where, as at Peleliu, their presence confounded the policy of segregation. Because of the random intermingling of white and black units, an African-American Marine, carrying a box of supplies, dived into a shell hole occupied by white Marines, one of whom gave him a cigarette before he scrambled out with his load and ran forward. Here, too, black stewards and members of the depot and ammunition companies came to the aid of the wounded. A white Marine, Robert F. Graf, who lay in a tent awaiting evacuation for further medical treatment, remembered that: "Two black Marines . . . ever so gently . . . placed me on a stretcher and carried me outside to a waiting DUKW."

Alex Horton in the Los Angeles Times writes that "the Army’s 476th Amphibian Truck Company, an African American unit, powered through the water to land DUKWs on the volcanic sand beach of Iwo Jima in February 1945. They were tasked with bringing artillery pieces ashore. The beach was littered with bodies and destroyed vehicles as the 476th inched through enemy terrain to deliver their guns to Marine Corps artillerymen. The guns began firing by the evening, according to an Army history. More than half of the 48 vehicles were sunk or destroyed."

"PFCs Willie J. Kanady, Eugene F. Hill, and Joe Alexander of the 34th Depot Company relax during a lull in the action on Iwo Jima, where danger persisted even after the island was declared secure. Before they left Iwo, the company would become engaged when the Japanese mounted a banzai charge against Marines and soldiers." Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 113835

"At Iwo Jima, the 8th Marine Ammunition Company and the 33d, 34th, and 36th Marine Depot Companies served as part of the shore party of the V Amphibious Corps. Elements of the ammunition company and the 36th Depot Company landed on D-Day, 19 February 1945, and within three days all the units were ashore, braving Japanese fire as they struggled in the volcanic sand to unload and stockpile ammunition and other supplies, and move the cargo inland. Eleven black enlisted Marines and one of the white officers were wounded, two of the enlisted men fatally."

The first flagraising atop Mount Suribachi, February 23, 1945. photo by Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery

"On the early morning of 26 March, 10 days after Iwo Jima was declared secure, the Japanese made a final attack that penetrated to the rear area units near Iwo Jima's western beaches, including the 8th Ammunition and 36th Marine Depot Companies. The black Marines helped stop the enemy in a confused struggle during darkness and mop up the survivors at daybreak. Two members of the 36th Company — Privates James M. Whitlock and James Davis — earned the Bronze Star for "heroic achievement." One Marine from the depot company and another from the ammunition company were fatally wounded, but four others, two from each unit, survived their wounds. The African-American companies that fought at Iwo Jima shared in the Navy Unit Citation awarded the support units of V Amphibious Corps."

The second flagraising atop Mount Suribachi, February 23, 1945.
16 mm color film, by Marine Sgt. Bill Genaust.


Obviously, a film is the vision of the director. In the case of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood begins by focusing on the group of Marines who were immortalized in Rosenthal's photo of the second flagraising on Suribachi. But in the second film, Eastwood pulls the camera back for a wide shot to include the Japanese viewpoint. By broadening his range, but not including other elements of the USMC experience, Eastwood leaves himself open to fair criticism. Artists all make choices, but those choices are then open to discussion - Why this story and not that story? Why this character and not that one?

Spike Lee feels that Clint left out an important part of the story that continues to resonate in our current American existence. "Clint Eastwood is a great film maker and I respect his work, and he did two films about Iwo Jima back to back, and there was not one black soldier in both of those films," Lee said.

Spike is making a point here about emphasis when he fails to credit Clint for the inclusion of black characters on board ship before the invasion. Once the fighting starts the black faces disappear from the film.

Lee continues, "Add the running times of both films, that's about four hours. ... Many veterans, African-Americans who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood for not even having one, but Clint Eastwood is a great director and that was his vision. His vision of Iwo Jima: Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that you know. I have a different version."

"There were African-Americans on Iwo Jima", Eastwood admitted in an interview with the Guardian, "but they didn't raise the flag. The story is 'Flags of Our Fathers,' the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate. ... I'm not in that game. I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a picture and it's 90 percent black, like 'Bird,' I use 90 percent black people."

Spike Lee's response, "If Clint wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima, and I'd like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist," he said.

Eastwood's final comment was out of character:"A guy like him should shut his face," Eastwood told the Guardian. "Has he ever studied the history?"

Spike Lee in an interview with ABC News retorted, "I'm not making this up. I know history. I'm a student of history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to World War II. Not everything was John Wayne, baby."

"Clint Eastwood is a great director. He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn't personally attack him. And a comment like, 'A guy like that should shut his face' -- come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there. Even though he's trying to have a Dirty Harry flashback, I'm going to take the Obama high road and end it right here. Peace and love."

Upon the release of Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Father's, Dan Glaister, the Guardian's Los Angeles correspondent, wrote an article critiquing Clint's omission of black Marines in the film. Glaister writes:
"The people carrying the ammunition were 90% black, so that's an opportunity to show black soldiers. These are our films and very often they become our history, historical documents." Yvonne Latty, a New York University professor and author of We Were There: Voices of African-American Veterans (2004), wrote to Eastwood and the film's producers pleading with them to include the experience of black soldiers. HarperCollins, the book's publishers, sent the director a copy, but never heard back."

"It would take only a couple of extras and everyone would be happy," Yvonne Latty said. "No one's asking for them to be the stars of the movies, but at least show that they were there. This is the way a new generation will think about Iwo Jima. Once again it will be that African-American people did not serve, that we were absent. It's a lie."

Glaister ends his article with telling words, "The first chapter to James Bradley's book Flags of Our Fathers, which forms the basis of the movie, opens with a quotation from president Harry Truman. "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." It would provide a fitting endnote to Eastwood's film."

The history we don't yet know will create films and novels for the future. Let me start with an image: Black Marines struggling with ammo boxes under intense Japanese fire, diving into foxholes, sharing a brief cigarette with their white comrades in the Corps, and then moving up the line with bullets and grenades. Only to be ignored as Invisible Men by the war correspondents and the press corps as the battle is recounted.

Spike Lee in Los Angeles
photo by Gregg Chadwick

Spike Lee will tell a bit more about the African-American experience in World War II with his upcoming film, Miracle at St. Anna , which focuses on four black US soldiers who get trapped in an Italian village.

Clint Eastwood's next film will be The Human Factor, starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in a tale about how Mandela used a campaign to have South Africa host the 1995 Rugby World Cup as a chance to unite his country.



More at:
Black Marines in WWII
Absent from history: the black Marines at Iwo Jima
Spike Lee Interview with ABC News
Clint Eastwood in the Guardian
One Version of History
We Were There: Voices of African-American Veterans

The Band James Visits My Studio

The members of the UK band James laugh as lead singer Tim Booth answers a question.

The band was set up for an interview in my studio complex just outside my studio door in Santa Monica.


It was an interesting day of painting with Tim Booth's quiet, lilting voice filtering into my workspace. Tim Booth expressed that James has unfinished business in the US and are hoping to tour here in the near future.

James had just finished a session with Nic Harcourt at KCRW before they stopped by. The complete KCRW session below:



website: wearejames.com

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (live)

Final Salute

The New York Times has a powerful mix of words and images in Janet Maslin's article on Jim Sheeler's new book Final Salute. Jim Sheeler's book is based on a 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles that he wrote for The Rocky Mountain News. I have posted a brief selection of quotes and photos below:


"When 2nd Lt. James Cathey's body arrived at the Reno Airport, Marines climbed into the cargo hold of the plane and draped the flag over his casket as passengers watched the family gather on the tarmac. During the arrival of another Marine's casket at Denver International Airport, Major Steve Beck described the scene as one of the most powerful in the process: "See the people in the windows? They'll sit right there in the plane, watching those Marines. You gotta wonder what's going through their minds, knowing that they're on the plane that brought him home," he said. "They're going to remember being on that plane for the rest of their lives. They're going to remember bringing that Marine home. And they should."
Photo: Todd Heisler/Rocky Mountain News


"Before the burial of James Cathey's body, his casket was covered with the white gloves of the Marines who carried him, along with sand they brought from the beaches of Iwo Jima, and a single red rose."
Photo: Todd Heisler/Rocky Mountain News


"Major Steve Beck and another Marine approach the family home of 2nd Lt. James Cathey, preparing to escort the Catheys to the airport to receive their son's body. Five days earlier, the shadows of Casualty Assistance Call Officers followed the same path, carrying the news no military family ever wants to hear. The gold star flag in the window signifies the death of a loved one overseas."
Photo: Todd Heisler/Rocky Mountain News

The complete story is at:
Books of the Times:
Bearing Witness to the Fallen and the Grieving

Final Salute

Upcoming Workshop at Esalen With Gregg Chadwick, Phil Cousineau & RB Morris

Phil Cousineau Reading from Stoking the Creative Fires at Bird & Beckett Books, San Francisco

Gregg Chadwick will be leading a weekend workshop at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California with author Phil Cousineau and poet/musician R.B. Morris on August 22-24, 2008

On the Bus: A Multimedia Performance Workshop—Mythmaking in the Movies, Music, Art, and Poetry

"Together as a group, we will become modern mythmakers by creating and performing a new multimedia work over the course of the weekend. Our spark will be musician R. B. Morris's song, ‘On the Bus,' which will serve as a template for a one-act play. Writer Phil Cousineau will help to stoke the creative fire of the group by bringing the mythic dimension into the story; painter Gregg Chadwick will take the lead in helping us visualize the story and the set; and Morris will help us write and arrange the score. On Sunday morning we will stage and perform the piece together."


RB Morris

To reserve a space:
On the Bus: A Multimedia Performance Workshop—Mythmaking in the Movies, Music, Art, and Poetry

Memorial Day

Arlington West (Iraq Memorial) Santa Monica

An old marine at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC scanned the reflective black wall for his buddy's name. "His name should be right here", he said to his wife as he pointed to a small gap between names."Check the book again." His wife calmly took his hand and said, "You have the wrong war. Your buddy died in another country at another time."

Masami Teraoka: Cloisters' Confessions

Masami Teraoka and Samuel Freeman Speaking at the Opening of Cloisters' Confessions at the Samuel Freeman Gallery on April 19, 2008.
The painting behind:
Masami Teraoka
The Cloister/Venus and Pope's Bullfight
101"x300.5" oil on canvas with gold-leaf frame 2006-7

Masami Teraoka's powerful exhibition Cloisters' Confessions closes today at the Samuel Freeman Gallery in Santa Monica, California. During the show's run, I have slipped into the gallery frequently to witness the incredible mix of hope and horror in Masami's masterful paintings.

"In Teraoka's new works, where the floating world of pleasure-seekers has been replaced by the Spanish Inquisition, sex is no longer about pleasure. Rather, it has become the theater in which political power plays are enacted before a voyeuristic populace seeking titillation from the sexual misdeeds of the mighty, and where religion and morality can become weapons against freedom. A recurring theme in these paintings is how the religious and political right in America has wrested control of the definition of morality in order to further its own purposes."
- Eleanor Heartney, Pictures from an Inquisition,
Art in America April 2001


Masami Teraoka Speaking at the Opening of Cloisters' Confessions at the Samuel Freeman Gallery on April 19, 2008
The painting behind:
Masami Teraoka
The Cloisters/Holy Sea Pregnancy Test
119"x112.5" oil on canvas with gold-leaf frame 2007

Samuel Freeman writes in the catalog:

"These paintings show the horrors of our time retreating before the sensory pleasure of corporeal experience. The negative is pushed aside by the glowing curves of pregnant bellies and the impending, potential, rediscovered kiss of bright red lips."


Masami Teraoka
Virtual Inquisition/Reclining Eve(detail)
92.5"x168" watercolor on paper mounted as a four panel screen 1997

Masami Teraoka came to the United States from Japan in the early 1960s. Peter Clothier writes in the catalog:

"Long before most of us became aware of the problems inherent in what we have come to identify as "globalization," Teraoka was busy making those deservedly famous, delightfully irreverent images of McDonald's hamburgers and Baskin Robbins' 31 Flavors invading Japan.... Teraoka often included himself in these paintings as a wily co-conspirator, impishly complicit in the devil's bargain between two cultures."


Masami Teraoka
McDonald's Hamburgers Invading Japan/Chochin-me
color screenprint on Arches 88 paper, ed. 41/91 1982
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

In 1996 in a review of Masami's exhibiton at the Sackler Gallery in Washington DC, Joyce Jones explained that "Masami Teraoka frequently e-mails his sensei (or teacher) Utagawa Kunisada, the famous Japanese woodblock artist. That's a neat trick, considering Kunisada died in 1865.But after viewing Teraoka's Coke-swilling geisha or punk rock samurai -- his fusion of traditional Japanese art with icons of American influence -- e-mailing the 19th century doesn't seem unusual."
The Sackler show paired Masami's AIDS series with Kunisada prints from his personal collection.


Masami Teraoka
AIDS Series/Geisha and Fox
14 3/4" x 25" watercolor on canvas 1988

Masami Teraoka's current work is dark in theme but not in spirit. In a telling comment during his informative lecture at the opening of Cloisters' Confessions at the Samuel Freeman Gallery, Masami explained that many of the horrific scenes exist only in the mind of the painting's protagonist. In Semana Santa/Venus’ Security Check the Policewoman in the checkered-banded bowler cap only imagines that the blond venus disrobed before her eyes is strapped with explosives. The painting comments on the ludicrous culture of fear that we currently inhabit and was inspired by a humorous and frightening experience that Masami's San Francisco art dealer, Catharine Clark, went through with her family at Heathrow in London.



Masami Teraoka
Semana Santa/Venus’ Security Check
119'' x 96.5'' x 2.75'' Oil on Panel in Gold Leaf Frame 2004

Across his fruitful career, Masami Teraoka has used depictions of the figure to grapple with the pain and poke fun at the foibles of our human existence. Masami looks back to the art of the past, at times ukiyo-e prints and other times as evidenced in the Cloisters paintings to Renaissance Italy, to find clues to help unravel the mysteries of art and life.

(I am off to view the show for one last time)

More at:
Peter Clothier
Masami Teraoka's website
Samuel Freeman Gallery
Catharine Clark Gallery

At VCU, Grant Money From Tobacco Giant Philip Morris Is Kept Secret

In the May 22nd issue, the New York Times reports that Virginia Commonwealth University has given a sweetheart deal to Philip Morris USA, the nation’s largest tobacco company and a unit of Altria Group, which gives the tobacco company veto rights over publishing results of research sponsored by the company:

“When universities sign contracts with these covenants, they are basically giving up their ethos, compromising their values as a university,” said Sheldon Krimsky, a professor at Tufts University who is an expert on corporate influence on medical research. “There should be no debate about having a sponsor with control over the publishing of results.”

Stanton A. Glantz, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine who has lobbied for banning tobacco money on campuses, said, “University administrators who are desperate for money will basically do anything they have to for money.”

More at: At VCU, Tobacco Money Is Kept Secret

From four years ago in Thailand see details on an event that could provide possible protest ideas for VCU students, staff, and professors: Thai/U.S. Youth Crash Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards Events



Thai/U.S. Youth Crash Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards Events

Whispers of the Moon

Gregg Chadwick
Whispers of the Moon
48"x36" oil on linen 2008

Francis Bacon's Triptych Sells For $86 Million

Francis Bacon
Triptych
78"x58" oil and pastel on canvas 1976

"The picture surely treats of sexual love – that 'crime' as Baudelaire put it, in which one is fated to have an accomplice – and the suffering it frequently sets in motion...The themes of crime, guilt and punishment are all strongly represented in this magnificent work....From this stasis no outcome is possible, no purging of the turbulent passions, almost as if, in his deep seated masochism, the artist had chosen constant pain over catharsis" - Michael Peppiatt

Gary Ruddell Exhibition Opens at Gallery Henoch in New York on May 15th

Gary Ruddell
Bocce Ball
52" x 50" oil on canvas

Gary Ruddell is a great painter. His artwork continually surprises me and inspires new ideas in my own studio. If you are in Manhattan in the next few weeks make sure to stop by the Gallery Henoch to give some time to Gary's paintings.
His paintings convey the mystery inherit in modern life - much like the poems and short stories of Raymond Carver. Ruddell's painted world slips in and out of focus in a silvery air.



Gallery Henoch's Website

Painter and Model: Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping Sells for $33.64 Million

Lucian Freud
Benefits Supervisor Sleeping
59" x 98.5"oil on canvas 1995

The London Evening Standard has a nice interview with Sue Tilley who posed for the painting -

In the article Sue Tilley explained the genesis of the painting:
"The first time the artist met her, in a Soho nightclub 20 years ago, he criticised her lipstick. "He said it had too many blue tones. The next time we met was over lunch at the River Café and I wore a different lipstick," she said.

She knew she was effectively being interviewed for the role of artist's muse and was briefed on how to behave by their mutual friend, performance artist Leigh Bowery.

"But I just did as I wanted as usual," said Ms Tilley, who grew up in Sussex Gardens and now lives in Mornington Crescent.

"Soon after, Leigh called me up and said, 'Lucian wants you to start work next week' and he made me practise stripping off on my settee at home before I went to Lucian's house in Holland Park. I like a bit of excitement but I was still mortified when I got there and he told me to take my clothes off. For the first picture I had to lie on the floorboards in a most uncomfortable position with Leigh and Nicola, the woman he married, and a dog.

"I was in agony and I thought about giving up. But we work hard in my family so I stuck it for the whole nine months. Leigh got rubbed out because he went to Scotland and Lucian needs you to be devoted. He won't work on the painting when you're not there." Ms Tilley, who has worked at the JobCentre in Denmark Street for 30 years and previously worked in nightclubs, modelled for Freud on her days off. "For the picture on the sofa I only had three days off in two years. Every weekend he expected me to be there and I couldn't go on holiday because I couldn't get a tan," she said.

"It was wonderful to spend time with such a fantastic person and see him working. Lucian has an opinion on everything and he was interested in my run-of-the-mill life."

The Guardian ran another interesting interview with Sue Tilley in 2005. Because Freud's painting, for which Tilley modeled, sold for such an extraordinary amount of money, a lot of garbage and misunderstanding is making the rounds in print and on the web. It is well worth the time to read up on this "ordinary" woman's extraordinary life as a model for Lucian Freud as well as a friend, ( not to mention confidante, and tillkeeper in the '80's at Taboo), of Leigh Bowery.


Sue Tilley in London

More at:

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping may fetch £17m - Lucien Freud

Freud's JobCentre muse

Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping sells for record $33m

Robert Rauschenberg 1925 - 2008

Robert Rauschenberg
October 22, 1925 - May 12, 2008
As Seen by Chuck Close
140 x 112 cm color digital pigment print 1996


On the New York Times website, dancer and choreographer, Paul Taylor has written a moving farewell to Bob:
"Robert Rauschenberg’s work and overall spirit as an artist and human being had an ENORMOUS impact on shaping my own direction and conviction as an artist. I am deeply indebted to his liberating approach in working with any-&-all materials including other people. The R.O.C.I. period equally demonstrated his love for mankind through our creations and showed that we ARE all in this together after all. He changed my life and blew my mind and I am a better person/artist for having been touched by him (literally even).
You were the BEST sir and I say God Bless You Bob! Goodbye."

Michael Kimmelman's farewell: Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82

Christopher Knight from the Los Angeles Times writes: Robert Rauschenberg, 82; influential artist mixed painting, sculpture and cast-off items

New York Times Page on Rauschenberg

Hillary Skit on Saturday Night Live

Great to see that Saturday Night Live is relevant again. This clip gets my vote as the best political skit so far.

Fernand Léger's Étude pour 'La Femme en Bleu' sold this evening at Sotheby's in New York for $39,241,000

FERNAND LÉGER
ÉTUDE POUR 'LA FEMME EN BLEU'
51"x38" oil on canvas 1912-13
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 39,241,000 USD

Fernand Léger's Étude pour 'La Femme en Bleu' sold this evening at Sotheby's in New York for $39,241,000. Painted shortly before the outbreak of World War I, Léger's painting is a masterful composition of blues and silvers.


More at: Sotheby's Video

The Empire Strikes Barack

May the force be with you as you vote ...

Joseph Andrew's Inspiration

On My Switch From Clinton to Obama
By Joseph Andrew

I have been inspired.

Today I am announcing my support for Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States of America. I am changing my support from Senator Clinton to Senator Obama, and calling for my fellow Democrats across my home State of Indiana, and my fellow super delegates across the nation, to heal the rift in our Party and unite behind Barack Obama.

The hardest decisions in life are not between good and bad or right and wrong, but between two goods or two rights. That is the decision Democrats face today. We have an embarrassment of riches, but as much as we may love our candidates and revel in the political process that has brought Presidential politics to places that have not seen it in a generation, we cannot let our family affair hurt America by helping John McCain.


Here is my message, explained in this lengthy letter that I hope is perceived as a thoughtful analysis of how to save America from four more years of the misguided polices of the past: you can be for someone without being against someone else. You can unite behind a candidate and a vision for America without rejecting another candidate and their vision, because in real life, opposed to party politics, we Democrats are on the same side. The battle should not be amongst ourselves. Rather, we should focus our efforts on those who are truly on the opposite side: those who want to continue the failed policies of the last eight years, rather than bring real change to Washington. Let us come together right now behind an inspiring leader who not only has the audacity to challenge the old divisive politics, but the audacity to make us all hope for a better America.

Unite the Party Now

I believe that Bill Clinton will be remembered as one of our nation's great Presidents, and Senator Clinton as one of our nation's great public servants. But as much as I respect and admire them both, it is clear that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists John McCain.

I ask Hoosiers to come together and vote for Barack Obama to be our next President. In an accident of timing, Indiana has been given the opportunity to truly make a difference. Hoosiers should grab that power and do what in their heart they know is right. They should reject the old negative politics and vote for true change. Don't settle for the tried and true and the simplistic slogans, but listen to your heart and dare to be inspired. Only a cynic would be critical of Barack Obama inspiring millions. Only the uninformed could forget that the candidate that wins in November is always the candidate that inspires millions.

I ask the leaders of our Party to come together after this Tuesday's primary to heal wounds and unite us around a single nominee. While I was hopeful that a long, contested primary season would invigorate our Party, the polls show that the tone and temperature of the race is now hurting us. John McCain, without doing much of anything, is now competitive against both of our remaining candidates. We are doing his work for him and distracting Americans from the issues that really affect all of our lives.

We need to be talking about fixing the economy, not whose acquaintances once said what to whom. We need to be talking about stopping the attacks in Iraq, not stopping the attacks in Indiana. We need to be talking about policy, not politics.

Barack Obama is the Right Candidate for Right Now

While I am a longtime critic of our Party's rules that created so-called super delegates, we have the rules we have and we must live with them. I am humbled and honored to be a super delegate, and I understand the seriousness of the duty it entails. I recognize that this is a difficult decision for super delegates like me, who owe so much to President Bill Clinton. It is right to be loyal, to be grateful and to be consistent. But it is also right to acknowledge the inevitability of change, right to dare to dream for a better world, and right to know what in your heart is the right thing for the future even if your friends and family disagree. Good things, just like good people, can disagree. But as Democrats, we must disagree with dignity, debate with admiration of each other, and in the end, go forward with mutual respect.

President Clinton and Vice President Gore gave me the opportunity to serve as the Chair of the Democratic Party. I pledged my loyalty to them, and I will never forget Al Gore putting ego aside, gently demurring, and simply asking me to put our country ahead of politics. It is a lesson I will remember forever, and it is what guides me now in this decision. What is best for our Party and our country is not blind loyalty, but passionate support for the candidate who can best correct the misguided policies of the last eight years.

We need a candidate who will re-invigorate the economy and keep good jobs here in America. We need a candidate who will end the war in Iraq. We need a candidate who will provide health coverage for our 45 million uninsured neighbors. We need a candidate who will end our addiction to high-priced foreign oil by investing in renewable energy here at home.

That candidate is Barack Obama.

What was best for America sixteen years ago was electing Bill Clinton. What would have been best for America eight years ago was not only electing Al Gore, which we did, but allowing him to serve as President of the United States. Imagine how the world would be different if Al Gore and not George Bush, would have been President of the United States. Let's seize the opportunity and vote for someone who like Al Gore, was against the war from the beginning, and who brings a new energy, a new excitement, and a new politics to our country.

Let's put things right.

Time to Act

Many will ask, why now? Why, with several primaries still remaining, with Senator Clinton just winning Pennsylvania, with my friend Evan Bayh working hard to make sure Senator Clinton wins Indiana, why switch now? Why call for super delegates to come together now to constructively pick a president?

The simple answer is that while the timing is hard for me personally, it is best for America. We simply cannot wait any longer, nor can we let this race fall any lower and still hope to win in November. June or July may be too late. The time to act is now.

I write this letter from my mom's dining room table in Indianapolis, Indiana. Four generations of my family have argued and laughed around this table. But what I humbly believe today is that we, as Democrats and as Americans, face what Dr. King characterized and what Senator Obama reminds us is the fierce urgency of now. As a nation, we are at a critical moment and we need leaders with the character and vision to see us through the challenges at hand and those to come. I can't guess what will happen tomorrow, so I can't tell you what kind of experience our next President will need to have to deal with those challenges. But I can tell you what kind of character and vision they will need to have -- and that is what inspires me about Barack Obama.

As Democrats, however, we risk letting this moment slip through our fingers. We risk ceding the field to the Republicans and allowing the morally bankrupt Bush Agenda to continue unabated if we do not unite behind a single candidate. Should this race continue after Indiana and North Carolina, it will inevitably become more negative. The polls already show the supporters for both candidates becoming more strident in their positions and more locked into their support. Continuing on this path would be a catastrophe, as we would inadvertently end up doing Republicans work for them. Already, instead of the audacity of hope, we suffer the audacity of one Democrat comparing John McCain favorably to another Democrat. When that happens, you know it is time for all of us to stop, take a deep breath and unite to change America.

We must act and we must act now.

The Problems of the Process: 2000 and 2008

When Al Gore got a half million more votes than George Bush in 2000, yet the Electoral College elected George Bush President, we saw the absurdity of any system that does not elect the person who gets the most votes. That is why the Democratic Party's nomination process is flawed. I will continue to fight for a 2012 process where there are only primaries, and which ever Democrat gets the most votes becomes our nominee. Delegates should decide the party platform -- voters should decide who our nominee is.

But we are struck with this absurd system for 2008, and, flawed though it may be, we must work within it without betraying the voice of the people. No amount of spin or sleight of hand can deny the fact that where there has been competition, Senator Obama has won more votes, more States and more delegates than any other candidate. Only the super delegates can award the nomination to Senator Clinton, but to do so risks doing to our Party in 2008 what Republicans did to our country in 2000. Let us be intellectually consistent and unite behind Barack Obama.

A New Era of Politics

My endorsement of Senator Obama will not be welcome news to my friends and family at the Clinton campaign. If the campaign's surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton's cabinet, a "Judas" for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me. They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton.

When they use the same attacks made on me when I was defending them, they prove the callow hypocrisy of the old politics first perfected by Republicans. I am an expert on this because these were the exact tools that I mastered as a campaign volunteer, a campaign manager, a State Party Chair and the National Chair of our Party. I learned the lessons of the tough, right-wing Republicans all too well. I can speak with authority on how to spar with everyone from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove. I understand that, while wrong and pernicious, shallow victory can be achieved through division by semantics and obfuscation. Like many, I succumbed to the addiction of old politics because they are so easy.

Innuendo is easy. The truth is hard.

Sound bites are easy. Solutions are hard.

Spin is simple and easy. Struggling with facts is complicated and hard.

I have learned the hard way that you can love the candidate and hate the campaign. My stomach churns when I think how my old friends in the Clinton campaign will just pick up the old silly Republican play book and call in the same old artificial attacks and bombardments we have all heard before.

Yet, despite the simple and overwhelming pressure to do anything and everything to win, Barack Obama has risen above it all and demanded a new brand of politics. People flock to Senator Obama because they are rejecting the hyperbole of the old politics. The past eight years of George Bush have witnessed a retreat from substance, science, and reason in favor spin, cronyism and ideology. Barack Obama has dared not only to criticize it, as all Democrats do, but to actually reject playing the same old game. And in doing so, he has shown us a new path to victory.

Uniting for Victory

The simple fact is that Democrats need to be united in November to win, and Clinton supporters, in particular, will be vital to victory. We will not convince Clinton supporters to join the Obama campaign, however, by personally criticizing them. We must welcome everyone and avoid doing Republican work for them. It is therefore incumbent on all of us who once supported Senator Clinton to welcome the thousands who should now switch their support to Senator Obama. Similarly, a necessary part of the healing process for our Party is for those who supported Senator Obama early to have the grace and good sense to broaden the tent and welcome newcomers into the fold.

The old players of the old political game will claim that I am betraying my old friend Senator Evan Bayh by switching my support to Senator Obama. I believe that Evan Bayh would be a great President, and therefore a great Vice President. I will continue to argue that he would be a great choice to be on the ticket with Barack Obama. Evan Bayh is uniquely positioned as a successful governor with executive experience who is now a U.S. Senator with foreign policy experience and who is young enough to not undercut the message of vitality and hard work that Barack Obama represents. Part of healing the Party may be to have a Clinton supporter on the ticket, let alone someone who would help with Indiana, Ohio and the moderate Midwest in the general election.

Being for Evan Bayh, however, does not mean that you have to be for Hillary Clinton. The important message to Hoosiers, and to super delegates, is that being for someone does not mean that you agree 100 percent of the time. Regardless of whether Evan Bayh and I support different candidates, I will support Evan Bayh.

We must reject the notion that we have to beat the Republicans at their own game -- or even that the game has to be played at all. It is so easy for all of us involved -- candidates, campaigns and the media -- to focus on the process and the horse race that we forget why we got into it in the first place. Barack Obama has had the courage to talk about real issues, real problems and real people. Let's pause for a second in the midst of the cacophony of the campaign circus and listen.

In 1992, I was inspired by Bill Clinton because he promised, and delivered, a framework for addressing America's problems. President Clinton ended a long-running left-right debate in our Party, and inspired millions. He drew giant crowds and spoke passionately for a generation of Americans who often disenfranchised and rarely participated in governing. Today, Barack Obama does the same thing. Winners redefine the game. Winners connect with the American people and not only feel their pain, but inspire them to take action to heal the underlying cause. Barack Obama is that kind of candidate and that kind of leader, which is why he will win in November.

Welcoming Everyone into the Party

We face significant challenges as a nation and as a Party, but time and again, Americans have shown the resilience and determination necessary to overcome even the highest obstacle. We have a difficult road ahead, but I have complete confidence that Barack Obama is the candidate who can lead our Party to victory and the President who can guide us to even greater heights.

Many Democrats know me for one short speech I gave over and over again in the 2000 Presidential campaign. That speech was about welcoming people into our Party and welcoming undecided voters to our campaign to elect Al Gore. Today, we need to welcome Clinton supporters, undecided voters, and all Americans to join Barack Obama's cause to fight for a better America. My speech ended with these words, which are even more relevant today:

The difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is that you are always welcome in the Democratic Party.

Because Democrats don't care if you are black or white or brown or a nice shade of green, you are welcome in the Democratic Party.

We don't care if you pray in a church or a synagogue or a temple or a mosque, or just before math tests, you are welcome in the Democratic Party.

We don't care if you are young or old, or just don't want to tell your age, you are welcome in the Democratic Party.

We don't care what gender you are, or what gender you want to hold hands with; as long as you want to hold hands, you are welcome in the Democratic Party.

We don't care about the size of your bank account, just the size of your heart; and we don't care where you are today, just where you dream you want to be tomorrow.

That is your Democratic Party.

That is Barack Obama's Democratic Party.

That is the Party that will win in November.

Sincerely,

Joe Andrew

Joseph J. Andrew was National Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1999-2001

More at the Huffington Post:
Joseph Andrew Backs Obama