Monday, January 02, 2023

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

Sunday, January 01, 2023

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!

Saturday, December 31, 2022

Happy New Year! On to 2023

 


Gregg Chadwick
30"x 40" oil on linen 

Happy New Year!
明けましておめでとうございます
Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu


In my painting "New York Stories" it’s five minutes to midnight. Waiting for 2022 to move into 2023 like the hands of a clock spinning into the next hour, figures move around the iconic Grand Central clock like foxes huddling beneath a tree in Andō Hiroshige's "New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Ōji"

It’s raining this New Year’s Eve in Santa Monica. I’m listening to a recording of a 10,000-member choir in Japan singing “Ode to Joy” in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Enthusiasm for Beethoven is particularly strong in Japan. Every year in December, singers gather in a concert hall in Osaka to sing the final chorus from Beethoven's Ninth.



Gregg Chadwick
Passing View of Shohei Bridge 
30"x24" oil on linen 1990



Again, my thoughts trace a circuit from this moment back to an earlier New Year in Japan as 1989 rolled into 1990. I was in Tokyo following the spirit and artworks of Ando Hiroshige. That winter in Japan, I clutched a large volume by Henry D. Smith II and Amy G. Poster on Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and trekked on rail, foot and car across the historic core of what was Edo era Tokyo. Sponsored by the Nippon Seiyu-Kai's 30th Anniversary Award, I endeavored to create a series of new paintings inspired by Hiroshige’s woodcuts. Time, place, memory, mystery and lore all mixed in my artworks.


Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) (Japanese, 1797-1858)
 New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Oji
( No. 118 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)
 9th month of 1857  Woodblock print
 Brooklyn Museum


Today @nortonsimon posted a photo of one of the most mysterious images from Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Alison Baldassano from the Brooklyn Museum wrote about this artwork, "People aren’t the only beings who gather together for special celebrations on the night before a new year dawns. In this woodblock print by Hiroshige, foxes come together on New Year’s Eve to receive directions for the upcoming year and emit ghostly flames, the size of which helps predict the next year’s crop…. And, as the foxes could say in the morning, 明けましておめでとうございます (akemashite omedetou gozaimasu) or #HappyNewYear!"


#art #NewYear #NYC #japan

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Happy Birthday Puccini!

 


Puccini
6"x6"oil on panel 2019
by Gregg Chadwick
(Private Collection, Denver, Colorado)


Today we celebrate the birthday of opera composer Giacomo Puccini, born #onthisday in 1858. Known for "La Boheme", "Tosca", "Madama Butterfly", and "Turandot", Puccini's operas continue to inspire. I painted this small oil on panel painting of Puccini for a solo exhibition of opera inspired artworks at the Central City Opera in the summer of 2019. That year and also in 2007, I created a series of paintings that were commissioned by the @ccityopera to be used as keynote images for each of their productions during the summer season. It was a marvelous project to work on and I loved spending time in Colorado with the entire Central City team. Great music and great camaraderie! Thank you Central City Opera!


#puccini #centralcity #Colorado #Opera #classicalmusic #art

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Watch President Zelenskyy of Ukraine as he delivers inspiring remarks to a Joint Meeting of Congress



President Zelensky received a standing ovation before he began his speech to Congress. “Slava Ukraini!” Glory to Ukraine! members of Congress shouted out. “Heroyam Slava!” 
Glory to heroes! he responded.

 

President Zelensky concluded his address by unfurling a battle flag given to him by soldiers on the front line in Bakhmut, Ukraine and then gifted the flag to the United States. 

“This flag is a symbol of our victory...We stand, we fight, and we will win because we are united. Ukraine, America, and the entire free world."

Join President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Biden as they hold a joint press conference

Monday, December 19, 2022

Final Jan. 6 Committee Hearing


The final Jan. 6 committee hearing is today at 1 p.m. EST and will include a vote on criminal recommendations from the Capitol attack.


"He is unfit for any office" -- Cheney on Trump










 

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Patti Smith: I Want My Book To Be Something Positive For The People


Patti Smith visits the Morning Joe program to discuss "A Book of Days," which collects a calendar year of images and words. Patti discusses how the pandemic brought her to Instagram and how being on Instagram helped lead to her book.

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

President Biden Hosts a Ceremony on the South Lawn to Sign the Respect for Marriage Act!



Monday, December 12, 2022

Angel's Flight, Bunker Hill District, Los Angeles, 1964


Wonderful journey to Los Angeles Past. 

Created by CineClark who writes: "Part 2B of a 12-part 8mm film series on Los Angeles, I found this 8mm gem in a thrift store. I have digitized it and, using the narration sheet that came folded up in the case, narrated this film. I did not change, omit or edit any words from the original narration in order to preserve the integrity of the original film. To skip my intro, jump to the :55 second mark. 
* I was struggling on using the possessive or not in the title. Though it is known today in its current location as Angels Flight, I decided to use the apostrophe as it is shown on the wheelhouse sign at the 1:44 mark of this film. 
A nice slice of Los Angeles history. Enjoy."

Friday, December 09, 2022

A Love Supreme

 

Bass – Jimmy Garrison Composed By, Tenor Saxophone – John Coltrane Drums – Elvin Jones Piano – McCoy Tyner Engineer – Rudy Van Gelder Producer – Bob Thiele Recorded: December 9th, 1964 A1 Part I - Acknowledgement 0:00 A2 Part II - Resolution 7:48 B Part III - Pursuance / Part IV - Psalm 15:14

Join Me Tomorrow - Art at the Airport





 


Join Gregg Chadwick and over 20 other artists for Art At The Airport’s Open Studios & Holiday Art Sale December 10th, 4-7 pm. Come and enjoy food, drinks, performances by pianist Paul Cornish and the Santa Monica Folklorico Ballet, purchase handmade, artisanal goods by Market Exchange vendor collective and participate in a winter ornament workshop conducted by artist Marcus Kuiland-Nazario. Free to all, please register in advance: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/holiday-open-studios-tickets-454587231647
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Art At The Airport is made possible by Art of Recovery, an initiative of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs, santamonica.gov/arts/artofrecovery. To learn about upcoming Art At The Airport events, visit: https://www.artattheairport.org/. Free to all, please register in advance: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/holiday-open-studios-tickets-454587231647
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#ArtofRecovery #ArtAtTheAirport #CityOfSantaMonica #SantaMonicaArtsCommunity #SantaMonicaArtScene #BuyArtFromArtists #SupportLocalArtists #SantaMonicaArtCollective #SantaMonicaCulturalAffairs #ArtistsSupportingArtists #ArtSaMo #SantaMonica #greggchadwick 

Thursday, December 08, 2022

WNBA star Brittney Griner has been released from Russian detention and is on her way back to the United States


“Today is just a happy day for me and my family.”

 Cherelle Griner's  remarks on the release of her wife Brittney Griner from Russia 

Wednesday, December 07, 2022

Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd - Lana Del Rey