Speed of Life

"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...