A Walk With Ganesh

Gregg Chadwick
A Walk With Ganesh
72"x84" oil on linen 2005

Recently during an extended visit in Thailand, I toured the elephant parks in the mountains north of Chiang Mai.
Each day the elephants are brought down to the river and bathed.

As I watched these daily baths, I knew that I needed to paint these moments- the elephants, the mahouts, the river, the water, the light, the color, the heat and the air.

Ganesh- (in the Hindu pantheon, known as a remover of obstacles) provided an apt title.


Hokusai
"Blind Men and Elephant"
from the Hokusai manga series ("Random Sketches"), volume VIII, Pages 13,14
1818

After viewing "A Walk With Ganesh", Julie Weiss brought in a treasured book on the Japanese artist Hokusai opened to Hokusai's manga -"Blind Men and Elephant". This image wonderfully illustrates Buddha's parable:


Once, a group of blind men, who generally got about by holding on to each other as they cautiously shuffled through the countryside, came upon an elephant.

The first man, feeling the enormous leg, said, "This thing is very like a tree."

The second, standing near its ear reached up and said, "This is a winnowing fan!"

"No," said a third as he grasped the moving trunk. "Be careful. This is a creature belonging to the serpent family."

"I disagree," said a voice at the other end. "It is only a frayed piece of rope".

"You are all wrong. I have felt this thing on both sides. It is nothing more than a wall."


When the Buddha was staying near Shravasti, he retold this parable to try and get a group of ascetics living nearby to quit arguing. Each one was maintaining that he was the only right one and that everyone else was wrong. The Buddha declared that they were only disputing among themselves out of ignorance.


Kuniyoshi (1797-1861)
"Taishun, hoeing a field with the help of elephants"
9" x 13 1/2" Woodblock Print c.1840

A Letter from Danielle Brazell to the Arts Community

Dear Friends and Colleagues:



The devastation in New Orleans and the gulf cities is almost incomprehensible. New Orleans is one of the richest cultural centers in the country. It is home to hundreds of musicians, visual artists and theatre professionals.

Yet New Orleans also has one of the highest poverty rates in the country. Like many of us, these artists live gig to gig, check to check.

And these artists are now dispersed throughout the country. I’ve been in touch with several colleagues from New Orleans and while they may be physically okay, they are trying to figure out the day-to-day reality of their displacement. This day-to-day may well turn into months if not years.

The national arts community is mobilizing to help with this crisis. If you would like to help, the recommendation is to give to the Red Cross relief fund and then give a little more to the artists affected by Katrina.

The Southern Arts Federation has established an artists’ and arts organization fund, which will be administered by the three state arts councils.

Downloadable PDF for donations is at:
Southern Arts Federation

Also, if you know an artist affected by Katrina, NYFA has a great list of resources:
NYFA

Housing Links:

Craig’s List

SAG Foundation Housing Board

Now open for Screen Actor's Guild members and non-members to help with housing swaps for those displaced by Katrina.
When logging into the system type “Guest” as the member ID#.

Also check out these informative links relating to the arts relief effort:

Artist Relief News

community based arts.net

Please spread the word.

Our City of Ruins, Our Belle Ville

Gregg Chadwick
Belle Ville
11"x11" oil on linen 2005

NBC's Dateline producers movingly combined scenes of the destruction and the suffering of the victims of Hurricane Katrina with Bruce Springsteen's song "My City of Ruins" at the close of their look last night (Thursday, 9/1) on the hurricane devastation in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It is a brillant, sad, and stirring song, which Springsteen originally wrote for the economically-gutted hometown of his imagination: Asbury Park, N.J. It changed meanings when he included it in his performances after the World Trade Center's destruction on 9/11/01 and on his album exploring the pain of that day, "The Rising." On screen last night his words and somber chords honored yet another group of sufferers who have seen their city ruined. And its our city too, our belle ville, our most European and artistically fecund city that has been drowned. It is our neighbors who have died or had their lives washed away. This disaster is bigger than insurance companies, bigger than the Federal Emergency Management Agency, bigger than the governments of Lousiana, Mississippi, and Alabama can handle. To "rise up" as Springsteen calls at the end of the song, for New Orleans to rise up, we will all need to help. I know that many of you feel as helpless as I do right now. One thought of how we could connect and help raise our belle ville:

1. The emergency agencies coordinating care quadrant out the disaster area into 45 or so sections and assign each quadrant to one of our non-affected states.

2. Then relief-minded groups and individuals in each state could focus their attention on one quadrant of the disaster.
3. State coordinators could then help community groups identify and adopt a block that they will commit to help until it is rebuilt or reestablished someplace else.

4. Members of those community groups could then adopt a family from that block to walk with them and support them in the reestablishment of their homes, livelihoods, and lives.

Imagine the returnees seeing a sign by their flooded home when they are finally able to return. This block has been adopted by your friends in Seattle or Los Angeles or Brooklyn, call us for help.

I've always dreamed of celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but it's now going to take some rising up work to now be able to do that. Artists, there are going to be a lot of homes to paint. It's time for a city-raising.

-Kent Chadwick