Featured knowledge Artist

[Claudio fiori]

My name is Claudio Fiori. I'm an Italian Artist . I'm self taught and still learning as I consider Art and endless experience with life.Art is borderless and out of time , as necessary to human beings as food and water.Without it life is tasteless and senseless.In my opinion Art is a powerful instrument for expression and communication belonging to everybody because it's part of our own nature.I see the Artist as a person with a mission at the service of society.He has to search deep inside His inner self to be able to express to others, feelings,moods,ideas or concepts.He is a magician which can create the illusion of three dimensions(or more)on a white bi-dimensional piece of paper.He is the Author of the songs people sing when they are happy or immages people look at when they want to see some beauty or....whatever. It's a great responsability to be an artist and the Great Muse will never stop to teach and guide us.Pablo Picasso once said" Art is stronger than me,She makes me paint what She wants "and on another occasion said " Maybe I've learned to draw as a child does ". Only a Great Master can say these things because much technical knowledge is required to reach that stage where the Muse use's you to express Herself.Another example is what John Coltrane said" learn your instrument,practise a lot of scales and once you play, forget everything and JUST BLOW".This is what I consider a step toward the " NEXT LEVEL". When in the 80's I found myself searching for some poetry to portray and with many spiritual questions in my mind, I came to India, Even though I'm still with thousands of questions I did find my characters and each one with their poetry.Characters out of time who are repeating more or less the same actions wearing the same clothes in the same places as their forefathers did thousands of years ago.What an opportunity for me to be living in my poetry with my characters sharing knowledge,food and adventures.In Nepal, in Phokara to be precise ,I made a very interesting experiment with some local artists.Daily we would exchange our knowledge, me, teaching our western style of Art and they teaching me the technique for Tanka paintings(Tibetan Buddhist).
Recently I discovered the digital media and why not? It's the new media for this era and I think that it should be used . The product is the piece of Art not the instrument used.So my tip of the day is practise a lot especially drawing as it's the foundation of a good painting and keep experimenting so that when the Muse comes we are ready.
My medias are watercolor,pastels,oil on canvas and now also digital.
I apologise for my mispellings and grammatical errors hoping that my message has been passed on anyway.
My webpage is www.ClaudioFioriArt. com If you visit i would appreciate if you could please sign the guest book.
I hope that with this writing to have stimulated some questions or curiosities,if so please feel free to continue this topic with me. Regards Claudio Fiori.

[Slone Fries]

Thank you for doing this Claudio! I know a lot of your moving must have had an impact on the type of art you produce! Do you think it essential for artist to explore other cultures and do you think someone can explore another culture without being immeressed in it?

[Claudio fiori]

No dear Sloane an Artist do not have to move to an other colture an Artist as to be where is poetry is. Actually an Artist have only to be.

[Coleen Ryan-Rivera]

Claudio,
Your words resonant with me.I've alway felt that taking classes and studying art has it's place . All very good then as you quoted Coltrane "forget everything just blow " The feeling that I get from just letting it happen can not be put into words. Thank you for sharing with us.
Love the flower lady . Beautiful

[Claudio fiori]

Ciao Ryan. Yes this is the magic, but you need to know before you can forget. wish you the best. Claudio

[Ann Simms]

Well said , Claudio.. But the question is what is knowing. Some folks put their faith in knowing history and technique and focusing the energy there. However, some of them never seem to get beyond that.

Others like myself are drawn to process itself , the eperience of art making, trust in the unconcsious, and the joy of surprise but risk avoiding technical proficency .I think both ways are important but the integration is dificult and lifelong.


Ann

[Claudio fiori]

Wow! There is so much truth in what you say. Sure we need to know history and tecniques as we should not waste the experiences of the great Masters of the past but ultimately is our inner self and the joy of experimenting with colours,light,tones etc what makes Art a never ending story with life itself.

[Ann Simms]

Thank you, Clausio.. Is the image above pastel, watercolor or a light acrulic wash?

Love the colors and the energy but was dispponted to see the woman so quickly. I would have liked to have to look more carefully and be surprised.:)

Ann

[Claudio fiori]

The immage is made by crayon watercolourable. If you want to have a bit more to look at, here is an other example. Anyway my point is to look inside and just discover the immages of our unconsious wich sometimes are only forms and shapes wich portray our moods or feellings and people can recognize some of themself in it. So I added another example where the play with colours and us is just a magic game. I really thank you to have given me this opportunity to go deeper into the "JUST BLOW"subject.

[Jay Zerbe]

i love the quote from coltrane! very appropriate for being an artist. i also agree that drawing is the basis for all (2D at least) art. i also use digital means - mostly to create my collage papers - but it CAN also produce good art. but using real materials (pencil, ink, gouache) is essential to move beyond the usual crap i see that is digital. i don't know if you are aware of Studio Artist - a great tool for producing work that mimics how real paint/line goes on. layering multiple effects using that tool gives very painterly results. you might check it out. keep up with the good work, and good thinking!

[Claudio fiori]

Hi Jay.Thanks for your comment and by the way I've seen your webpage with your African inspired works and I think you shold keep going that direction wich inspired artist as Picasso and Modigliani. In my point of wiew your immages are missing a bit of deepness but who is me to tell you this. Regarding digital I use only Photoshop and started doing so just to have a quick idea of what my future painting would look like and in the process I descovered that it's an Art form in it's self. I do not know about Studio Artist and if you wish you can give me more informations. One more thing I woul like to tell you about your paintings wich is, changing the center of attention or the focal point, consequently also the rest of the work takes a new shape and meanning.Really I wanted to write my comments on your dicussion but i did not considered them as of much help. Regards.
Claudio.