Animal Stories

by Gregg Chadwick

 

Gregg Chadwick
Arctic Fox
30”x30” oil on linen 2020
Steph Yoon Collection, Irvine, California

When I was  in elementary school, I felt a great connection to the natural world and would often wander into the woods near our home to poke around in the creeks to watch tadpoles scurry about and find newts hidden under rocks. On trips to the public library, I would come home with stacks of books on animal life. There was so much to discover and I was determined to learn how to draw animals to learn more about them. I would take a sketchbook and drawing pencils to the zoo to try and capture the animals I encountered on my visits. On trips to the National Gallery in Washington DC, it was the animals in paintings by Delacroix and Rubens that drew me in. Over the years, I have continued to create artworks about animals and recently have created a series of paintings that shed light on climate change, the beauty of the natural world, and our place with other species. My oil on linen artwork "Arctic Fox" is part of this ongoing series and brings the natural world directly into our vision. In art and myth the fox holds a special place. From Aesop's Fables, to Reynard the Fox, to the foxes gathering on New Year's Eve in Hiroshige's "New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Oji", this crafty animal symbolizes intelligence and cunning over brute strength.

We are richer because of the animals in our midst. I first became aware of the fragile nature of our planet as an eight year old. For Christmas one year, I asked my parents for the book “Wildlife in Danger” published by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). They are still an important organization providing information, plans, and hope for our endangered earth. Worried about the environment as a kid, I drew pictures of animals constantly. 

Somehow in my childhood stacks of books, I missed Gerald Durrell's marvelous "My Family and Other Animals."  Prompted by viewing the Masterpiece Theater production "The Durrells in Corfu"  based on Gerald Durrell's "My Family and Other Animals" and its two sequels, I recently read Gerald's childhood memories for the first time.  The television series deftly translates Gerald's vivid prose into light soaked images. Durrell's book is a witty look into five years of his childhood on the island of Corfu. While his older brother, author Lawrence Durrell, was just beginning to make his way in the literary world and his sister Margo was learning about love and life, Gerald was digging in the dirt looking for animal life. Gerald created a home grown menagerie at their rented villa and began a lifelong appreciation of nature and the environment. 

Gerald Durrell was born on January 7, 1925 in India to British parents. His father died in 1928, creating an unsettled life for Durrell's mother who moved the family around England before arriving in Corfu, where Gerald spent the formative years of his childhood. As detailed humorously in "My Family and Other Animals" a series of private tutors attempted to educate the young Gerald, but natural history and his growing collection of creatures from scorpions to owls provided his main intellectual interest. In his adult life after World War II, Gerald went on numerous wildlife expeditions and wrote 37 books including "My Family and Other Animals", "A Zoo in My Luggage", and "The Mockery Bird." With proceeds from his bestselling books, in 1959 Gerald founded the Jersey Zoological Park and then in 1963 the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust with the goal of breeding endangered species. Gerald received the Order of the British Empire in 1982 and was featured in the United Nations' Roll of Honor for Environmental Achievement in 1988. 

As we collectively celebrate our beautiful planet, we are reminded by the words and actions of forward thinking environmentalists, such as Gerald Durrell and Greta Thunberg, of the urgent need to Act On Climate now. We must recommit ourselves to promoting and enacting solutions that will safeguard our planet for generations to come.

Gregg Chadwick
Sea Bear, Panda's Thumb, Panthera Leo, Red Fox
Each 7”x5” oil on wood 2021

Hold the Line: We the People Prevailed - Courage Under Fire - From the Civil War to January 6th

by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick

Drum Taps

24"x24" oil on linen 2011

 I grew up in a military family. My father was a career officer in the United States Marine Corps. Many of my friends from my school days were also military dependents. In particular, my buddy Mark Stephens embodied the ethos of duty and fidelity that the Corps presented to us. His dad was also in the Marine Corps and fought in Vietnam as an artillery officer. Mark joined the Navy after we graduated from Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. I remember him visiting me while I was a student at UCLA dressed for shore leave in his Navy dixie cup sailor cap and service uniform. Behind his welcoming bonhomie, Mark carries a fierce intellect. Befitting his future position as a history instructor at Chabot College in California, you needed to know your stuff if you were going to engage in debate with Mark. Especially military history, the US Civil War, and Monty Python. Mark would take on our Social Studies teachers if they dared enter into Lost Cause apologetics when it came to the Confederacy. We were in Virginia, but for Mark like me, the preservation of the Union was the real story of the Civil War. 

When I lived in San Francisco and often on return visits, Lawrence Ferlinghetti's bookstore City Lights beckoned. In 2012, I was with Phil Cousineau on a book tour for our joint effort The Painted Word, and Mark Stephens joined us. We were able to stand together in a packed upper room at City Lights and express our deep admiration for Ferlinghetti's inspiration. I presented my painting Drum Taps that night and let Mark expound upon the subject. I was inspired by Civil War era photographs of  young black Union drummers, especially Henry Augustus Monroe and Alexander Howard Johnson. Above the din of battle, the drum beat spoke, carrying orders, warnings, and inspiration. Beats and patterns  commanded the troops to advance, to halt, and above all else to hold the line. 

 Today marks two years since a violent mob of insurrectionists—sanctioned by the former President—descended on the Capitol in an armed and deadly effort to halt the peaceful transfer of power. To this day, Trump continues his attempt to poison American democracy with his Big Lie. In a rebuke to the former guy, President Biden today said “Two years ago on Jan. 6, our democracy was attacked. There’s no other way of saying it. All of it was fueled by the lies about the 2020 election. But on this day two years ago, our democracy held because we the people, as the Constitution refers to us, did not flinch. We the people endured. We the people prevailed.”

Watching the violence unfold at the Capitol via livestream on January 6, 2021, I was struck by the incredible heroism of the Capitol police and the DC police officers who fought against the brutal mob for hours to save our democracy. Our democracy held because they put their lives on the line in service to a positive ideal. During a ceremony at the White House, President Biden awarded a group of those officers with medals as he honored their courage during the January 6 insurrection.  

Thanks to the Capitol and DC police officers, we held the line. 

President Biden Marks the Two-Year Anniversary of the January 6th Insurrection During a Ceremony

President Biden awards s a medal to Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn as he marks the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection during a ceremony at the White House.

President Biden awards a medal to former D.C. police officer Michael Fanone as he marks the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection during a ceremony at the White House.

Reaching for Light on Miyazaki's Birthday

by Gregg Chadwick

 

Gregg Chadwick
Tokyo (Shibuya Crossing)
30”x22” monotype on paper 2023

Since I was a kid, I have spent a number of holiday seasons in Japan. The time from just before Christmas to just after New Year's Day is a magical time in Japan. Families gather from around the country as students and workers take time off and return to their homes for celebrations of the season. The food is marvelous, the conversations are rich, and the moments are precious. My monotype on paper "Tokyo (Shibuya Crossing)" is an artistic nod to my memories of Japan. As we move into 2023, I wish you a Happy Year of the Rabbit! And I would like to wish a warm Happy Birthday to artist and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki who was born on this day in 1941.

Pixar animator Enrico Casarosa said, "Miyazaki has this uncanny ability to add a childish sense of wonder to his stories. He’s able to make us feel like little kids again." 

Gregg Chadwick
Spirited Away
60"x48"oil on linen 2019

My oil on linen painting "Spirited Away" is an artwork that bridges realms. Light pierces shadow. The past enters the future. A woman on a meditative walk in the hills of Miyajima, Japan seems lost in reverie. Echoes of Japanese film, especially the animated works of Hayao Miyazaki illuminate our vision.

About ten years ago, I woke up from a dream that seemed to have been pulled from a Miyazaki film. In my dream a tender sapling reached towards the light as it sprouted from my wrist. Above, russet clouds moved in a cerulean sky. I look to my dreams as openings rather than fortunes. Yet, since I had recently returned from Tokyo, I remembered that in Japan the first dreams of the New Year, hatsu-yume 初夢, traditionally provide markers for the dreamer's upcoming year. I wrote about first dreams in my New Year's Day post on January 1, 2023 and feel that since my sapling dream ten years ago, I have made a conscious effort to reach for the light even when the world around us seems to be caught in a storm of hateful speech and actions. 

Celluloid Dreams at the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan

In December 2010, I was fortunate to visit the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Japan where I learned much about Miyazaki and his art.  Filmmakers Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata founded their animation studio in 1985 and named it after an Italian airplane first produced before World War II: the Caproni Ca.309 Ghibli. The word ghibli in Italian refers to the hot dry winds that blow across the Sahara desert.

Hayao Miyazaki

Sketch for My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro)

pencil and watercolor on paper 1988

(Ghibli Museum, Mitaka, Japan)

Hayao Miyazaki was born on January 5, 1941 just months before Pearl Harbor and the brutal battles in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. As a small child growing up in greater Tokyo, Miyazaki drew scenes of aircraft and aviation most likely inspired by his father's family business which built airplane parts for Japanese Zero fighter planes and also in the later years of the war, by his remembrances of the waves of Allied bombers which firebombed much of Tokyo into smoldering ruins.

Much of Miyazaki's mature work reflects his distaste for heedless violence and warmongering. Miyazaki also deeply cares about the environment and the place of natural beauty in a heavily industrialized Japan. Thirdly, many of Miyazaki's films feature a strong, brave, and resourceful main female character. On his birthday, I would like to give thanks to Hayao Miyazaki for his talent, vision, and deep concern for humanity. 

Gregg Chadwick
December Eyes/ Tokyo
72"x24" oil on silk 2011
Private Collection, Venice, California

 #art #film #poetry  #japan #miyazaki #miyajima #spiritedaway

Homage to Isherwood - Berlin Diary

 by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick
Berlin Diary
30”x22” ink on paper 2018

Painted as an homage to Christopher Isherwood, "Berlin Diary" depicts a fleeting moment in a city of dreams. As I created this artwork, I listened to the haunting soundtrack from the film "A Single Man" based on an Isherwood novel set in Los Angeles. Painted in ink and gouache over a monotype substrate, "Berlin Diary" combines vibrant color and movement to create a scene of mystery and possibility. Isherwood's life in Berlin from 1929 to 1933 inspired his "The Berlin Stories" which was adapted into a play, a film, and the musical Cabaret. In 1939 he moved to the United States as war loomed in Europe and settled in Los Angeles. Isherwood's life and work helped spur on the gay rights movement. Isherwood's books include the novel "A Single Man" and his autobiography, "Christopher and His Kind." Isherwood died of cancer on January 4, 1986. Isherwood and his lifelong partner artist Don Bachardy were fixtures for years in the Los Angeles artistic community. Author Peter Clothier recently wrote this on his admiration for Isherwood: 

"Isherwood’s early stories and poems were the first I read that spoke directly and personally to a teenage boy who was struggling to find his own voice, his own individuality as a writer as well as his own place in the world. I gobbled up his “Goodbye to Berlin” and “Mr. Norris Changes Trains” as though I had written them myself. Later combined as “The Berlin Stories”, they were clearly fiction only in name, novels that so intimately described personal experience that their main character was called, frankly, Christopher. As a writer, Isherwood saw himself as the hub of everything that happened around him and his work invited this young admirer, gave him permission to do the same."

Isherwood and Bachardy in front of Hockney's portrait 

Photo by Calvin Brodie

via The Metropolitan Museum of Art  

Like Peter Clothier, I began reading Isherwood when I was in my late teens. I was at UCLA and became intrigued by Isherwood and Bachardy while looking at reproductions of David Hockney's 1968 portrait of the two of them. 

On the occasion of a brilliant reading of Isherwood and Bachardy's letters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's MetLiveArts, actor Simon Callow said this about the portrait:

"When David first painted it, he and Christopher were beacons as gay men who were comfortably and unapologetically out at a time when that was very uncommon. It was the apparent effortlessness of it that made it so striking: their relationship was no big deal, they seemed to be saying. So this wonderful double portrait of a gay couple was, in its cool and unaggressive way, an affirmation of the normality of homosexuality, which was somehow even more radical than the already gathering voices of the militants. In a sense, Hockney and Isherwood and Bachardy were saying: 'Some people are gay. Get over it.' Like its 18th-century models, the portrait celebrates the quotidian: being gay doesn't have to be a drama."

#art #paintingsofinstagram #painting  #hollywood #Art #Jan4 #AYearInArt #GreggChadwick 

#ContemporaryArt #ChristopherIsherwood #DonBachardy 

#TodayInArt 

Happy Birthday Anna May Wong!

 by Gregg Chadwick

Anna May Wong

36"x48"oil on linen

painting by Gregg Chadwick

Ailsa Chang Collection 

The groundbreaking Chinese American actress Anna May Wong was born on this day in 1905. My painting ”Anna May Wong” is part of a series of historically inspired artworks on the history of the movie business and Los Angeles,. "Anna May Wong" evokes cinema dreams and societal memories. Anna May Wong was the first Chinese American film star, and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. Her acting career went from silent films to talkies, to stage, to radio, and to television. Born in Los Angeles, a few blocks from Chinatown, Anna May Wong's career has been an inspiration for many. My painting was created as an homage to Anna, sourced from numerous photo stills and film clips. I am honored that my painting of Anna May Wong is in the collection of NPR reporter Ailsa Chang. Ailsa's recent report on Anna is a must listen. 

#art #theotherartfair #theotherartfaironlinestudios #oilpainting #paintingsofinstagram #painting #annamaywong #asianamerican #movie #hollywood #Art #Jan3 #AYearInArt #GreggChadwick #ContemporaryArt #TodayInArt 

Ad Astra

by Gregg Chadwick

 

Gregg Chadwick
Beyond Light
30”x22” monotype on paper 2004
Private Collection, San Francisco, California

The Soviet satellite Luna 1 was launched on January 2, 1959. This was the first artificial object to reach the escape velocity of the Earth and the first to be placed in heliocentric orbit. 64 years later, Luna 1 remains in orbit around the sun. The Luna 1 mission was intended to crash into the moon, but due to a ground control error, the satellite veered off course like a robotic Major Tom. Two months later, the United States launched NASA's Pioneer 4. The space race was on and our night skies would never look the same. 

I remember watching the NASA Apollo missions on TVs wheeled into the classroom when I was in elementary school. I was always taken with the wide shots of the crowds outside Cape Kennedy gathered to watch the launch. Now known by its original name of Cape Canaveral, the NASA area was renamed by President Johnson in honor of President Kennedy who was the inspiration behind America's moon program. The name returned to Cape Canaveral in October 1973. 

My monotype on paper Beyond Light was the first in a series of artworks that depict a figure gazing at the sky as a rocket powered craft streaks upward towards the heavens. The Latin phrase Ad Astra - To the Stars - provides a thematic title to this group of artworks.  

Model of Interplanetary station Luna 1 exhibited in the "Kosmos" pavilion of the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy of the USSR

First Dream, First Sale 2023

 by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick

Ponte del Castelvecchio (Verona)

48"x36"oil on linen 

 In Japan the first dreams of the New Year, hatsu-yume 初夢, traditionally provide markers for the dreamer's upcoming year. In that spirit, perhaps the first artwork sold in a new year provides inspiration for the months to come. My painting Ponte del Castelvecchio (Verona) is the first sale of 2023. On this first day of the new year, I am busy packing up my Verona painting for shipment to its new home. 

I think back to the genesis of the painting. I was perched above a Renaissance era bridge in Verona watching a light rainfall and the swollen river rushing by. The smell of rain filled the air. Swifts darted across the milky sky. Like gauze stretched across a stage set, the mix of rain, bus exhaust, and a distant sun breaking through the mist cloaked the moment in a spell of timelessness. I thought of the late Russian emigre writer Joseph Brodsky and his idea that water is the image of time. Often on trips to Europe, I will carry a battered copy of Brodsky’s verse to help inspire my ramblings. Here in the Veneto, I am reminded of Brodsky’s love of Italy and Venice in particular. I turn the pages of Brodsky’s Watermark and find the passage I am looking for: 

“I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is. Perhaps this idea was even of my own manufacture, but now I don’t remember. In any case, I always thought that if the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water, the water was bound to reflect it. Hence my sentiment for water, for its folds, wrinkles, and ripples, and — as I am a Northerner — for its grayness. I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year’s Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to find myself near water, preferably near a sea or an ocean, to watch the emergence of a new helping, a new cupful of time from it. I am not looking for a naked maiden riding on a shell; I am looking for either a cloud or the crest of a wave hitting the shore at midnight. That, to me, is time coming out of water, and I stare at the lace-like pattern it puts on the shore, not with a gypsy-like knowing, but with tenderness and with gratitude.”

I look up from by book and peer down at the river’s edge. In the reeds and shallows small fish chasing food dart where the current eddies. In this reverie, my mind creates stories — If Brodsky is right these pools hold time in stasis. If I had a long net, maybe I could dip into the water and pull out living memories.

I rush back to my studio on Via Filippini and lay in with liquid oil paints the initial layers of my first study for Ponte di Castelvecchio.

 

Gregg Chadwick

Study for Il Sole nella Pioggia : Ponte Castelvecchio Verona

oil on canvas 

private collection — Verona, Italy

On the canvas, I brush in greens, milky blues, and brick reds. The structure of the bridge begins to emerge as I cut into the wet paint with a loaded brush of lighter color. It is a large canvas in my small 16th-century space and it quickly becomes a presence in the room. After the initial surface is complete, I lean the wet painting against the plaster wall.

Gregg Chadwick’s Via Filippini Studio, Verona, Italy 

I stand across the room and gaze at the painting. Even at this stage, the artwork has taken on a life of its own and I need to respect that. I see hints of Corot, maybe Degas? Perhaps I was thinking of Giorgione’s The Tempest now housed at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, Italy?

Giorgione Banner with Detail of The Tempest

I spend time with the painting, then out into the vibrant Veronese streets for dinner. Tomorrow, I will look at the painting again and maybe, if the paint is dry enough in the humid summer air, add more layers of color. In the morning light with an espresso in hand, I will see more clearly.

A few weeks later upon its completion, I left the study with a new collector in Verona and started on a much larger final version in my Santa Monica studio upon my return from Italy.

As a painting progresses, I will often find hints of its future shape in historical artworks as mentioned above, or in films, or books. When I was in graduate school at NYU, I studied not far from Verona in Venice. I often think of my instructor Giovanni Soccol who provided the art direction for Nicolas Roeg’s eerie Venice-based film Don’t Look Now. The film is based on a story by Daphne Du Maurier and stars Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. Soccol’s artistic vision is evident throughout the film and I remember traveling to sites in Venice with Giovanni where the film was shot. As a Venetian, water is an important subject for Soccol and is often poetically referenced in his film work and his paintings.

Another striking element from Don’t Look Now has found an echo in my painting Ponte di Castelvecchio (Verona). The color red is a character in Don’t Look Now as much as Christie and Sutherland. That pop of color against the green-blue water, blue and grey skies, and tawny stone of Venice finds an echo in my painting. In my painting, the splashes of red and orange that mark the umbrellas swiftly carried across the bridge find their antecedent in  Soccol and Roeg’s film. Water and time.

Happy New Year 2023!

Thank you Saatchi Art for coordinating the sale!