Defending the Muse: Michael Stein and Paul Georges

Paul Georges
The Studio
120”x79 1/2” oil on canvas 1965
The Whitney Museum Collection, New York
Courtesy Paul Georges Estate

Michael Stein's new novel "The Rape of the Muse" ponders the worth of art and the place of beauty in our contemporary society. Stein's re-imagining of painter Paul Georges' trial for libel in 1980 updates the events to the 21st century and fleshes out the characters with a post September 11th ennui. When Georges' trial took place in 1980, the Neo-Expressionist boom in art was just beginning. Emotional, brightly colored paintings using the figure as a theme filled galleries in New York and Europe. In that time Paul Georges’ artwork was included in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum in New York, the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. But still, Georges was an outsider looking in on an art world that often considered narrative painting to be atavistic at best - reactionary at worst.

Paul Georges
The Mugging of the Muse
80”x103” oil on canvas 1972-1974
Courtesy Paul Georges Estate

Michael Stein adeptly weaves elements of Paul Georges' life into the story of his fictive painter - Harris Montrose. Montrose cares deeply about the gift and responsibility of art. This humble esteem for the muse that stokes his creative fire leads to a showdown with an artistic colleague over a limned image. Are we all fair game for artistic interpretation? Is anything really private anymore? Is the language of painting relevant to our time?

Stein brings in a young artist, already marked by the reigning critics as one to watch, who is psychologically blocked from the creative process. This young artist, Rand Taber, becomes Montrose's studio assistant. As if in a scene from Martin Scorsese's segment in the film "New York Stories", Taber learns life lessons from his mentor Montrose. In this sense, Michael Stein seems to hold up the elder painter as a pugnacious model of validity. Harris Montrose paints like his life depends on it. The muse needs to be honored. And if anyone gets in the way they should heed the warnings. The muse shall be avenged.

It is refreshing to read a work in which art is considered deeply as much more than a commodity or a means to privilege. Michael Stein’s “The Rape of the Muse” is gutsy – almost an aesthetic bar fight of a novel. It is heartening to feel Paul Georges’ passion seep into Stein’s writing. Art is not just style. At its best, art considers life and then makes something new. Michael Stein’s “The Rape of the Muse” digs into the life and work of the forceful painter Paul Georges and conjures up a story for our moment.

Highly recommended.

Michael Stein

More at:
Life and Art of Paul Georges
Michael Stein's Website

Theater of Memory: New Exhibit Opens October 4, 2011 at the Monterey Peninsula College Art Gallery

Gregg Chadwick
Theater of Memory
48"x48" oil on canvas 2011

Theater of Memory
New Paintings by Gregg Chadwick

Curated by Melissa Pickford

Monterey Peninsula College of Art Gallery

Opening on October 4, 2011
Runs until November 4, 2011

One could say we all create paintings as we distill meaning from the rush of life. Experiences, moments, thoughts, actions, memories, and dreams mix together and overlap in our minds and hearts bringing patterns and understanding in our everyday life. My paintings in the exhibit, Theater of Memory at the Monterey Peninsula College Art Gallery, echo this cognitive-emotional process. My artworks evolve through a series of painting sessions in which colors and images overlap, merge, and flow.

At times, my paintings begin close to home with remembered dreams of family members. In the title painting, Theater of Memory, my much loved late nephew Luke Chadwick appeared unbidden, but at the perfect moment. His faint smile recalled a day many years before, when I began a painting in his Seattle bedroom. As Luke watched me mix my paints on an improvised palette, he exclaimed with the intuitive vision of a child that the color I had mixed would not do. “Don’t fear color”, he said in so many words, as he pointed to a rich ultramarine glistening on my palette.

In honor of Luke and my father, Robert Chadwick, I purchased a tube of genuine lapis lazuli from the London color maker Michael Harding. This true ultramarine, ground into a crystalline powder and mixed with linseed oil on a stone mill, is the color blue found in Renaissance skies. Transparent layers of this lapis mark each of my paintings in this exhibit. Sourced in Afghanistan, lapis lazuli, reflects the historical tides of trade, conquest and conflict that ebb and flow across this region and the globe.

More at:
Gregg Chadwick's Theater of Memory


Monterey Peninsula College Art Gallery

980 Fremont Street Monterey, CA 93940-4799

Melissa Pickford, Curator
More info at: mpickford@mpcgallery.com
831 646-3060

Receptions for the artist:
Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011 from 12:30 – 2 pm
&
Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011 from 4 – 6 pm

Gallery Hours: Tues-Fri 11am - 4pm or by appointment
Admission: Free
Parking: 4 quarters



Catalog Available:

Theater of Memory: Paintings by Gregg Chadwick by Gregg Chadwick | Make Your Own Book

Please Note:
Also in the gallery under the tandem title Humanitas: Paintings by Cynthia Grilli.

Finding Beauty in Our Art & Lives: Upcoming Workshop With Gregg Chadwick & Phil Cousineau at Esalen in Big Sur (Weekend of September 30-October 2, 2011)

Gregg Chadwick
Beauty and Sadness ( 美しさと哀しみと)

Often cocooned in our metal boxes as we speed through our days, modern life can seem barren and uncreative. How do we find joy in our lives? Where is that creative spark found?

Join Gregg Chadwick and Phil Cousineau as we explore the nature of beauty in our art and being.
Coming up at Esalen during the weekend of September 30 through October 2nd 2011, we will venture into the realms of artistic creation and personal discovery with exercises in visual art and discussions around the mythic importance of beauty. I hope you can join us at Esalen as we use the arts to get back to life.

For info and reservations:
Who Stole the Arms of the Venus de Milo? The Myth of Beauty from Aphrodite to Ansel Adams
Feel free to email me directly with questions or ideas at speedoflife@mac.com .

December 3-5, 2010 at Esalen: Gregg Chadwick and Phil Cousineau on Stoking the Creative Fires

Gregg Chadwick
Jordaan Window
25cmx25cm oil on wood 2010

Coming up on December 3-5, 2010, I am honored to lead a workshop on creativity with writer Phil Cousineau entitled Stoking the Creative Fires: Nine Ways to Rekindle Passion and Imagination

Phil Cousineau's book "Stoking the Creative Fires" is an impassioned volume on creativity that combines myth, story and personal pilgrimages in a primer on the creative life. My painting "Fire Dream" graces the cover.
We will use this book as a stepping off point for the upcoming workshop on creativity. It will be a rich journey through myth and art at Esalen. Sign up here: Reserve this workshop
We hope to see you there!




The Esalen Institute is a non-profit organization founded in 1962 by Stanford alums Michael Murphy and Richard Price as an alternative educational center devoted to the exploration of what Aldous Huxley called the "human potential." This world of unrealized human capacities that lies beyond the imagination has brought to Esalen a steady influx of philosophers, psychologists, artists, and religious thinkers.




Phil Cousineau at Esalen

Allan Hunt Badiner explains the history of Esalen:
"Esalen takes its name from the Native American tribe, the Esselen, that once lived there. Sitting on a former ceremonial ground, the Esalen property was the site of frequent cross-tribal peace gatherings. Esselen cosmology described Big Sur as a “weaving” center for human culture and drew representatives from tribes, near and far. Today, Esalen draws 10,000 people a year from around the world to participate in a wildly diverse menu of workshops. It brought former Russian President Boris Yeltsin to the West, popularized Rolfing and Gestalt, and nurtured books like The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters. Esalen created a context for understanding psychedelics, established the healing power of massage, and championed wisdom of the body. Visitors often mention that the land itself and spectacular coastline setting feels almost sacred." Allan's words are not surprising, given the retreat’s lineage of powerful teachers such as Abraham Maslow, Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Fritz Perls, Allen Ginsberg, Ida Rolf, Joan Baez, Boris Yeltsin, Philip Glass, Gregory Bateson, Buckminster Fuller and countless others who have visited and taught at Esalen in an effort to discuss, debate and develop revolutionary ideas, transformative practices, and innovative art forms.


More at:
Phil Cousineau
Gregg Chadwick
Stoking the Creative Fires
"Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion" by Jeffrey J. Kripal
Esalen at the Edge. From Zen and hot tubs to glasnost, the famed Big Sur retreat has changed our minds, bodies, and ways of looking at the world.
- by past workshop participant Allan Hunt Badiner

Esalen Glow

Sunset at the Esalen Institute

This past week I was honored to lead a workshop on creativity with writer Phil Cousineau and writer/musician RB Morris.
The Esalen Institute is a non-profit organization founded in 1962 by Stanford alums Michael Murphy and Richard Price as an alternative educational center devoted to the exploration of what Aldous Huxley called the "human potential." This world of unrealized human capacities that lies beyond the imagination has brought to Esalen a steady influx of philosophers, psychologists, artists, and religious thinkers.


Late afternoon at Esalen in Big Sur. Taken during a workshop on creativity by Phil Cousineau, RB Morris, and Gregg Chadwick.

Recently Phil Cousineau's new book "Stoking the Creative Fires" has hit the shelves. It is an impassioned volume on creativity that combines myth, story and personal pilgrimages in a primer on the creative life. My painting "Fire Dream" graces the cover.
We used this book as a stepping off point for the workshop. I am hoping in the future to have time for a more thorough journey through myth and art at Esalen. Stay tuned.


Workshop participant Natasha.

More at:
Phil Cousineau
RB Morris
"Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion" by Jeffrey J. Kripal
Esalen at the Edge. From Zen and hot tubs to glasnost, the famed Big Sur retreat has changed our minds, bodies, and ways of looking at the world.
- by workshop participant Allan Hunt Badiner

Phil Cousineau and Gregg Chadwick On Creativity

This upcoming weekend Phil and I will be presenting the second in a series of exploratory workshops at the Esalen Institute.


Gregg Chadwick
"Immersed in Silence"
60"x48" oil on linen 2006

Upcoming Workshop at Esalen,Big Sur

Phil Cousineau & Gregg Chadwick

DEC 22-24, 2006 AT ESALEN INSTITUTE

"Genius is the power for lighting your own fire." -- Emerson

For thousands, one of the profound mysteries of human adventure has been the creative impulse. The irrepressible urge to leave our mark, to express ourselves, is an essential part of what makes us human. But while creativity is as natural as breathing, it is also notoriously elusive, challenging, and riddled with ordeals--like any grand adventure.

This workshop will use a three-stage model of the Creative Journey -- Inspiration, Process, Realization-- to explore what it means to harness our imagination and tend our creative fires over the course of a lifetime. To explore this possibility, the course will use innovative exercises to encourage fresh ways of seeing, hearing, and feeling. These include listening for the color of music while drawing, sketching word colors while working on a poem; using photographs, movies and music to help break through creative block.

The leaders will also share the secrets which have allowed them to break their own creative blocks, such as Phil's sketching to help rekindle his powers of observation, and Gregg's use of writing and reading poetry and working with music to help him constellate new work.

There will be slideshows, film-clips, music, and discussion to help crystalize where students are on their own unique journey -- and what they need to make their vision a realilty.

This passion - filled workshop will appeal to artists, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, as well as teachers, parents, psychologists, and business leaders -- all who are fascinated with the creative adventure.

For reservations and more info see: Cousineau and Chadwick
 
Address: Esalen Institute 55000 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA 93920-9616
Esalen's Fax: 831-667-2724
Reservations:
831-667-3005

Calling All Angels: Suzanne Pullen tells her story in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Suzanne Pullen at Esalen

Our Esalen friend Suzanne Pullen tells her story of stillbirth in the San Francisco Chronicle: Calling All Angels
An absolute must read.



podcast:
Suzanne's Story

Read the whole story at: Calling All Angels