Gorillaz - Humility (Official Video)

Happy Birthday Rachel Carson!

Rachel Carson's Powerful Legacy

Rachel Carson
photo courtesy of rachelcarson.org

Today I would like to honor the groundbreaking environmentalist Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring sounded one of the first alarms about the detrimental effect of pesticides on the eco-system. The natural world was my first love as a kid and reading Carson's work was instrumental in spurring me on to look deeply at and respect the complexities of our endangered environment.

Carson's interest in conservation began with her early work as a marine biologist, which led to her award winning book, The Sea Around Us. Subsequently, nature writing provided a powerful vehicle for Carson to bring mainstream attention to the chemicals being dumped daily into our streams and rivers. Her work inspired global bans of the pesticide DDT  and helped foster the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States.

I encourage you to honor Rachel Carson's legacy by spending some time today on the Audubon Society's website, the US National Park Service's site, or your local nature conservancies information boards. All of these sites provide important information on how you can get involved and help preserve our natural world for future generations.

The Late Afternoon of Time - San Francisco

by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick
The Late Afternoon of Time - San Francisco
24"x20" oil on linen 2018

Cities, like people, grow and change. In this spirit, San Francisco continues to inform my paintings. Last weekend, at a friend's birthday gathering in Culver City, I recounted how one morning, when I lived in San Francisco, I spotted the artist Richard Diebenkorn leaning up against a BART entrance watching the cable car turnaround across Market Street. Diebenkorn was captivated by the movement of the conductors as they spun the cars around on a giant wooden turntable. I stopped, leaned up against a wall, and flipped through art writer Robert Hughes' book Nothing If Not Critical until I reached his essay on Diebenkorn. I read slowly, pausing often to gaze up at Diebenkorn as he gazed towards Powell Street. 

Eventually, I closed the book, walked over and thanked Richard Diebenkorn for his art and inspiration. He smiled and tears seemed to well up in his eyes, as he said "Thank you. I am glad that my work inspires you. Is your studio nearby?" I nodded and tried to say something "about the interplay between figuration and abstraction in his work." Diebenkorn was frail at this point and seemed to know that he didn't have much longer to live. I didn't want to take him away from his moment alone in the morning light on Market Street. I thanked him again and moved on. Richard Diebenkorn died soon after in 1993.

The late morning light, when it cuts through the fog in downtown San Francisco, opens the city up like an epiphany.  That morning was a revelation for me. Lawrence Ferlinghetti saw something similar in the City's light and wrote,"

                "And then the halcyon late mornings
                        after the fog burns off
                               and the sun paints white houses
                                    with the sea light of Greece
                      with sharp clean shadows 
                            making the town look like 

it had just been painted." 

I learned something profound that morning when I encountered Diebenkorn - my  heroes were mortal. And in turn, my family and friends also had a short time on earth. Life is fragile. I looked at the streets anew. Around us and beneath us memories dwelt.  A friend of mine who made his way from place to place along Market Street slid up to me one day at the corner of 6th and Market and showed me a horses skull in his battered shopping cart. "I was helping a man dig out his basement and I hit something hard", he said. "We found an entire skeleton buried there. Probably from the earthquake - from '07"

 Later I read that the cable cars were built because the horses kept breaking down on the steep San Francisco hills. The horses legs would snap under the weight. Maybe my friend's horse pulled a burden up Jones Street until collapse?  

 An immigrant from Scotland devised a system to carry cars and passengers up the steep slopes without animal power. Gary Kamiya writes in The Chronicle:

"At a little before midnight on Aug. 2, 1873, the men in the power plant fired up the boilers. The engines turned over and the cables tightened. The rope began to hum in the street, the first occasion of a sound that would become as familiar to San Franciscans as Bow Bells to a London cockney.

At 5 a.m., the team gathered atop Clay at Jones. Andrew Hallidie’s gripman, reportedly an old locomotive engineer, looked down the 16 percent grade into the fog and chickened out. But Halide, who had been hurled off scaffolding, buried in a tunnel and gone for a real-life Logger’s Revenge on roiling rapids, had confidence in his invention. He jumped into the dummy, took the grip, picked up the cable below and began to descend Clay Street. When the car reached the bottom, it was spun around on a turntable and pulled back up to the summit."

The turntable. Diebenkorn's gaze. The Changing Light. The Late Afternoon of Time.

Gregg Chadwick
The Changing Light - San Francisco
24"x18" oil on linen 2018

Gregg Chadwick's Palette
(Colors Used for  The Late Afternoon of Time and The Changing Light ) 

Happy International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia!

by Gregg Chadwick

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.

Sending love and solidarity to all on this worldwide celebration of sexual and gender diversity.

Illustrations via @UNAIDS

Don't Forget to Show Love

by Gregg Chadwick

4-year-old superhero using his power to feed the homeless

I am incredibly inspired by the compassion illustrated by Austin Perine from Birmingham, Alabama. CBS Sunday Morning featured the video embedded in the tweet below and it really touched my heart. Take a minute to watch and if you are inspired please click on the link below to support this young hero! 

the world doesn't deserve this kid pic.twitter.com/2KPi843yA6

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) May 5, 2018

Link to Show Love and Fight Hunger GoFundMe page: 

https://www.gofundme.com/show-love-fight-hunger?pc=tw_dn_cpgnsharemore_r&rcid=r01-152566420867-89057fc9c67d44fe

Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video)

Please join me in celebrating the 39th Venice Family Clinic’s Art Walk & Auctions!

by Gregg Chadwick

Venice Art Walk & Auctions – Sunday, May 20 from Noon-6pm 

Silent Art Auction

Noon–6pm

Gregg Chadwick

Cool, Gray, City of Love

24"x24" oil on linen 2018

Honored that my painting Cool, Gray, City of Love will be featured in this year's 39th Venice Family Clinic's Art Walk and Auctions. In the years that I lived in San Francisco, on most weekday mornings, I would walk with my young daughter along Market Street to the Cable Car turnaround. She would board eagerly, her face pressed up against the glass as the car would climb a seemingly insurmountable hill. The Gripman would nod to me and smile as we rode together into the fog. My painting Cool, Gray, City of Love looks back to those San Francisco mornings. City of Love indeed.

Venice Family Clinic’s Art Walk & Auctions raises funds to help provide quality primary health care to 26,000 low-income men, women and children annually.

Services Include Medical + Dental + Vision + Behavioral Health + Substance Use Treatment + Child Development + Health Education + Health Insurance Enrollment

Sites In Venice + Santa Monica + Mar Vista + Inglewood + Culver City

Be inspired with me by the creativity and generosity of leading contemporary artists. Place your bid and join us in providing health care to people in need. Click here to view the 2018 Participating Artists.

View and bid on the entire auction at Paddle8 from May 7-May 18

Click here to bid early or if you can’t attend the event, to proxy bid.

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Artist Studio Tours

Noon–4pm

Meet local artists and get a behind-the-scenes look at their creative process. Your $50 donation also includes a 2018 Venice Art Walk t-shirt by signature artist Alexis Smith.

Click here to purchase tickets.

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Food + Live Music + Beer & Wine Garden + Family Fun + Dog Daycare + Bike Valet + Art Installations

Noon–6pm

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New This Year: Interactive Workshops

11am–5pm

Jewelry Making with Amanda Diaz

Family Crafts with Art Camp LA

Floral Design with Art Fleur

Succulent Arrangements with Big Red Sun

Art with Claudia Concha

Macramé Wall Hanging Workshop with Faithful Artisans

Candle Making with Flores Lane

Calligraphy with High Pulp

Tickets are required for the artist studio tours and interactive workshops and can be purchased in advance at venicefamilyclinic.org/artwalk. Questions? Call 310.664.7916.

Curatorial & Host Committee

Robert Berman, Beth DeWoody, Laddie John Dill, Sam Durant, Peter Fetterman, Andrea Fiuczynski, Robert Galstian, John Geresi, Adam Gross, Jacquie Israel, Jaime Manne, Ana Prvacki, Bert Rodriguez, Sonny Ruscha, Analia Saban, Jessica Trent, Billie Milam Weisman, Kulapat Yantrasast

Steering Committee

Joyce Akashi, Penny Akashi, Barbara Beezy, Kristina Campbell, Amy Coane, Debora Dale, Samantha Frank, Erika Fujitani, Cindy Henry, Shelley Hochberg, KC Mancebo, Etan Milgrom, Matthew Quan, Jodie Rea, Gwen Samuels, Jessamine Sison, Irene Weibel