Chuck Hood's Extraordinary Chess Sets

Chuck Hood has been playing chess most of his life. He was a teenager when his dad first taught him the game. But after decades of playing on standard chess sets, he wanted something new. He also wanted to entice his niece and other youngsters to take up the game and thought new ideas for pawns, rooks, knights, bishops, kings, and queens might encourage interest. Being an artist, he decided to take up the challenge himself and create original chess sets.

His first idea was Hollywood vs New York. He says it was pretty easy coming up with ideas for the pieces. Hollywood's king is Oscar, the Academy Award, and Marilyn Monroe is the queen. Surfers are the bishops, film cameras are the knights, rooks are the iconic circular Capitol Music building, and pawns are oranges.

For New York, the queen is the Statue of Liberty, and the king is the Empire State building. Pawns are apples, rooks are the Flatiron building, knights are the Wall Street bull, and bishops are St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's a beautiful, fun set.

Hood next tackled sets a little more esoteric. He has one called Deco vs the New World on display in his studio, but each is actually its own set. With the New World pieces, Hood brings politics into the mix with the bishop where he has three religious symbols engraved into the bottom portion of the bullet - the Jewish star, the Islamic crescent, and the Christian crucifix.

Greek mythology has fascinated Hood ever since he was in the Navy and read Homer's Illiad and the Odyssey. So it was only fitting that he make a chess set of Greeks vs Cycladics. The pieces are made of zinc and tin. On the Greek side, Zeus is the king and Euphrates is the Queen. Homer is the pawn.

Hood's fascination for the game of chess comes from its 16 basic opening moves, its 42,000 different moves, its series of mathematical equations, and the interaction with opponents that is far juicier than any computer generated game.

Hood has made about eight sets so far. He plays on all his new sets and says, as the creator, it's easy for him to remember surfers are Bishops, or Knights are the Wall Street bull, and it's kind of fun watching his opponents get confused at first. It takes a game or two for them to remember what's what. The one-of-a-kind sets are for sale. Hood is not planning on making many more, or mass producing the sets. If interested, contact Chuck at gallery618E@yahoo.com.

The Brewery Art Walk Experience

If you've never been to the twice-annual Brewery Art Walk downtown Los Angeles, mark your calendar for the next one in the Fall. It's one of the best opportunities in Southern California to meet dozens of artists and see hundreds of original works in a single location, albeit a very large location. The complex is at the site of the former Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewery and has been called the "world's largest artist-in-residence community."My husband and I went to the event this past weekend and did our best to visit as many galleries as we could. We wandered from one loft to the next and discovered artists of all stripes working in photography, sculpture, mixed media, installation, performance art, architecture, illustration, fashion, video, and that which is still undefined.

Chuck Hood's amazing intricate mixed media assemblage pieces are fascinating works, many with headsets for audio accompaniment. His stack of religious books, called "I Swear," was quietly interesting until I listened to the provocative audio recording and it ramped up to startling and powerful.One of our favorite stops was at Guillermo Bert's gallery. His Bar Code series and 24 ct. gold leaf works are illuminating and I love his mixed media Sumo wrestlers. I'll have more on Bert in a future post.We found wearable art at the Dream Luxe loft where Javier Granados creates hand painted silk scarves. Granados graciously explained the batik process and how he works with wax to create his unique designs.

Children were not left out of the fun. There was an area for them to paint on the ground and the Barnsdale Arts exhibit featured paintings and drawings by kids.

In the coming days and weeks I'll be posting about some of the other artists we met at the Brewery. We only touched the surface, though, and will be heading back in the Fall.