Month of September, 2010
North York Central Library
5120 Yonge Street, 2nd Floor
www.claudioghirardo.com
last time we spoke you were excited to be involved in Culture Days coming up. When is it and what will be happening?
is there a website for the event?
the only way to get information right now is through the MAC (Mississauga Arts Council's) website. so now about you..! A running theme that I found in The Portraits series is that the figures all seem to be either self-aware or very much aware of their environment, almost examining themselves or their environment - was this consciously done?
well, yes. What I find interesting with people, is that there seems to be two layers to them. There's the first layer, which you get to see - how the person looks and talks, how you get to know them. But when you really spend time with a person, you see all the idiosyncrasies, those little things that are actually there, but you never see them, they're underneath. I think it's always interesting that that's actually the way you really connect with your environment, or the situation around you. It's more on a deeper level, than on a superficial one. Part of it is also because I hang out at coffee shops and sketch people. I'm interested in people's body language, or their facial expressions. You can learn quite a lot about a person from studying that right there.
you did an interview earlier this year when you were nominated for Mississauga's Most Established Artist award - congratulations by the way - where you mentioned that the book Bio-Spirituality was a big influence on you and on this series particularly. The book is about Neo-Humanism, which I was trying to research, and I couldn't find too much information about it - could you please elaborate on this philosophy?
just to back-track a little bit, the term 'Neo-Humanism' actually came from my friend Peter Larisey, who's an art historian. For people to really grasp something, they have to have either a name or term. He called my work Neo-Humanist based on a lot of the Renaissance figurative works dealing with Humanism. I'm just doing something new with it. It's really about that the body is a form of intelligence itself. In Bio-Spirituality, there's a quote I find interesting - "the body has this understanding that the mind can't grasp". The body's way of communicating is different than the mind's. It communicates through symbols, memories, movements, gestures. That's why I like the idea of distorting, or putting an extra limb, because it is the body now talking and communicating with the environment it's in. so there is memory involved in our physical interaction with our environment...
and the memory can be on a very deep level that you may not be able to understand or grasp. So all of a sudden the physical feeling triggers something that makes you ask "why am I feeling this way?". For example a friend of mine says she feels like she wants to throw up every time she hears the sound of styrofoam rubbing together. And she doesn't know why. All of a sudden the body's reacted to something, maybe it triggered a memory, or some experience.
i think we've all experienced something similar to that at some point...
yes, and we don't grasp it. One of the terms used in Bio-Spirituality is called 'Focusing'. It's a meditative quality where you're listening to your body communicate.
every figure in the series has that eye symbol. Is there any significance to that symbol? Is it an ancient symbol or was it you simplifying the eye and making it a symbol yourself?
i've learned that I work much better instinctually. When I just let go and just let it happen and unfold, and work with it, then something really wild happens. The eye was the same thing. It's almost an introspective eye. It represents something you're seeing within yourself all of a sudden. Some people have a hard time seeing within themselves. So that's why I simplified it and broke it down. It's also two-fold, one side is introspective, but it's also a way to communicate to the viewer. Saying to the viewer: "there's something going on inside of me, and I'm seeing something like this, I'm reacting like this."
could you talk a bit more about your process?
What I try and do a lot when I'm working is to not have everything worked out or figured out ahead of time, to just let it be allowed. There's the practical side, which is the training I've received, but then there's the deeper side, the instinctual side. I like to call it a dance because both elements are working together, they're flowing together. Nobody's taking the lead, nobody's in charge. You dance around, move around, and you just keep playing with it a bit more. Also, I once went to a show on outsider art. What got to me as soon as I walked in was this absolute freedom in the work. These people have never been trained as artists, but whatever they're feeling, or thinking about is just put out, they're just letting everything go. That freedom to me communicated that they were really working on a deeper level. Sometimes artists don't let themselves go, they want to have that sane control over the work. I can understand that in some pieces. I guess with me it just doesn't work well that way.
Sometimes we can get so bogged down with the idea of concepts, when there's something deeper going on that you're not letting out, because you've got to analyze it. A friend of mine, who's a therapist, said one of the biggest problems she has to deal with is having very analytical clients. She said when you try to analyze things so strongly, in a way what you're trying to do is control the situation. She has to teach them to stop analyzing and let go. I like to stand in front of my work, and ask myself things like "why did I do that?". But to just enjoy the experience of it as well. It goes back to what I said about bio-spirituality - the experience is really now how your body is taking that knowledge, information, or that feeling in - rather than your head.this reminds me of an art teacher I had once, who, a few months after he had created a piece, would suddenly realize why he did it, what it meant, or what it taught him about himself. But it would happen after living with the piece for that length of time.
i like what one friend said to me. He said that the journey of life is to connect the heart and the mind. I was talking to another friend of mine, and we were having a discussion about human beings having duality. And we thought that human beings are not actually two-in-one, we're three-in-one. There's the connection between the spirit, the mind, and the body. He said in a way, you have to balance all three. Balancing all three of them, you have to work at it. He said we're really trinitarian beings - there's three aspects to us.
it's interesting - I just covered the Loop Gallery's Elizabeth Babyn exhibit, and one of her themes was sacred geometry, and the triangle is very apparent in the human body.... But I wanted to ask you, are there any famous or well-known artists that have inspired you?
it's funny because I'm still having a debate with some people about the whole concept of inspiration. I once heard this interesting talk by Tony Sherman, who said there's no such thing as inspiration. I prefer to sometimes use the term influence. The biggest one definitely has to be Picasso. When I was teaching myself, I rented this documentary on Picasso. In one week, I watched that video about five or six times. On the second day I started doing all these drawings of me and Picasso. It was the weirdest thing in the world. I just started doing these drawings for no reason at all. And in the drawings we were having a sword fight. To this day I still don't get it. I had one friend look at it, and she was describing our qualities, how Picasso is more earth-bound, whereas I'm more air-bound.
so it's like the two elements battling?
yeah, she said you're seeing these two elements of you and Picasso. I think I did about ten drawings in one day of just that theme.
it seems like you're very much in tune with your right brain, that abstract part of us - you're so in tune with that, it's awesome.
that's one of the reasons why I say I'm inspired by life, because what I'm saying by that is I try to connect myself to the world around me. The one thing I don't have is an Ipod, and I never used to have a walkman. I tried it one time, and I hated it. I like hearing everything, or feeling the wind. Right now I'm feeling the sun on this side. The cars going by here, people walking over on this side...
being in the present moment...
yeah, yeah. And it's not something I'm thinking about, because then I close it off. But if I just let it be, it's like OK, I'm in this thing. Even the main religions talk about the importance of being to connect with everything all around you.
also in the interview you gave, you said that no one chooses to be an artist, but rather you're choosing to accept who you really are. It seems to have come easily to you, or did you ever have to struggle with this?oh, I struggled with it immensely. When I was a kid I wanted to draw comics for a living, and I think so because it just triggered the idea of drawing, of art. To me, growing up as the son of Italian immigrants, from World War II, the whole focus was to get a job, make a living, to put a roof over your head. Both my parents had to deal with poverty, and had to help the family before they built a life for themselves. When I talked to them about how I wanted to draw comics of course at first they were like "What?!". Later when I saw those pieces at the Museum of Modern Art, it triggered something in me, but I didn't know how to deal with it. Because I was taught to think get a job. Even when I came out of school, I wanted to get a job doing some kind of comics so I could make a living. That was the whole focus of illustration, because then I could pay my bills. Realizing that I had this really strong artistic influence in me, was hard for me to really accept. I was taught that if I do this, I'm not going to be like everybody else. It wasn't until I realized that maybe I'm trying to live a life that's not really meant for me. What if I was meant to live this other kind of life, and that's where I'm supposed to fit in.
that's where your greatest potential lies...
yeah, and so as time went on I came across two influential quotes. One is by Louise Bourgeois, a well-known contemporary artist who passed away a few months back. He said: artists are the way they are, there's nothing you can do for them. The other one was from Robert Rauschenberg, he said that you don't choose that you're an artist, you have to accept that you're an artist. I came to realize more and more that I had to accept who I am and what I am. Maybe if this is who I am, I can handle this kind of a life - because this is who I am. That's what's going to make you feel like you belong somewhere, or give you a sense of accomplishment.
in the interview with MAC you were asked what your proudest accomplishment was, and you answered the fact that you're still a practicing artist after 20-some years. What advice could you give on how to stay motivated throughout it all?
it goes back to what I said about the acceptance part. If you learn to accept that this is who you are, the motivation will always be there, because you come to that acceptance. And I'm not talking about saying "oh yeah, I'm an artist" - just like that, don't just say it. Its got to be something deep within you that somebody actually sees that in you where they're like "they don't understand it, they can't grasp it, but it's there." I've met a lot of people who go "I'm an artist man, and that's the way I am you know, and I do this..."
but it's not an image...
it's funny you mention the image part because I have a friend of mine who does work in self-esteem. He talks about how we grow up with images, we always put an image on ourselves. Like we're wearing a mask. If we don't like this mask we just change this mask for another mask. So we change that image for another image. His idea to raise your self-esteem is to get rid of the mask altogether, and just reveal yourself to the world. And it's hard. You will also struggle, and get pissed off. I have a musician friend who once said to me, "God, I wish I wasn't a musician!" And I can see why. But you have to accept that this is your purpose. The only purpose in life in my opinion, is to be you. The second purpose of life is to accept people for who they are. You're right, I'm not going to have a big house, I'm not maybe going to have 2.5 kids, I probably won't have a car, but this is me, and this is what's going to keep me going...
and happy and fulfilled...
well 'happy' is an interesting term. I always say allow yourself to feel every emotion. And that's one of the other things as an artist you have to be willing to do. You've got to be willing to feel happy, to feel depressed, to feel angry, all those feelings. I've met artists who only ever want everything to be hunky-dory, and it's like give me a fuckin' break. I'm sorry. Get angry every once in a while, get upset.
it's all part of the human experience...
That's why sometimes some people have a problem with art, because it gets them on a certain level. Sometimes being a human is not always pretty. But if you can accept humanity, I think you can find the beauty underneath it all, as long as you're willing to work within that. There's this attitude, particularly in North American culture, where how you look is very important. It's pushed very strongly, that if you're not looking a certain way, there's something wrong with you. I kind of go against that notion. Even as you get older and everything's going, there's a beauty there. You have to be willing to go through the changes in life, and your body has to change within that. Otherwise your body becomes rigid, and so does your mind.
There's an artist by the name of Janine Antoni who taught herself how to walk on a tightrope, for part of a performance piece she was doing in a video. She said that she realized she wasn't learning how to balance herself, she was learning how to be comfortable being unbalanced. She said how she just wished she could do that in her day-to-day life. I guess the bodies in my pieces, being twisted like that, are working within that change.
One book I would highly recommend for an artist who struggles with maybe their culture or accepting themselves with their art, is a book entitled My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. About a person growing up in a very Orthodox Jewish family who has to come to terms with the fact that he's an artist. In one part, he's praying to God and asking him, am I always going to be like this for the rest of my life, living in these two worlds? That book helped me out, because I realized that I'm like that as well, I have that kind of duality. www.claudioghirardo.com
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