WORKS IN THE RIGHT HANDS
Works in the right hands are special because they are done with care, with much effort and concentration. They are in the hands of someone who knows how to use them because they are my mom’s who never gives up on a work but respects it. So, I want to explain her very special works.
- “Piero, do you feel you’re an artist?”
- “No. I feel more like someone who observes and feels art.”
LIFE IN A POINT
This is how I named my mom’s photography work (“Water”). Each day you make a work, and at the end of your life you see a lovely finished work. The first time you see it you remember to finish it right away, but you have to stop and keep working hard each day. In his life, an artist has many things. He must think of and do a lot, but he usually focuses more on one thing. Each day he takes care of something, and in the end a lovely work is created. The artist is usually satisfied with his creation and his hard work.
- “Dear Piero, I wanted to tell you it’s true that an artist is satisfied with his creation, but the creation doesn’t exist if life doesn’t exist. Life outside, human relations, things, music, food, etc. Especially my work wouldn’t exist if you didn’t exist.”
- “Thank you.”
THE LIFE OF COLORS
This is what I named the “Diaries” my mom made. Diaries give off life to other people. Like all artists, my mom gives off life and work in different ways. You can’t know when a work ends or how because the end of a person’s life cannot be predicted, just imagined. My mom foresaw much time, and she took a lot of materials she’ll paint her entire life.
- “Dear Piero, today I really liked it when looking at my Diary Holder full of all the wood I imagined to fill up for the rest of my life, you said: <Maybe you’re infinite>."
- “Maybe! I’m not saying you really are infinite.”
DENSELY IMPROVED COLOR
This is the title I gave to my mom’s work with pastels (“Diary-Paper”). If you think about it, you’ll realize that if you rub a color with pastels a lot, the color becomes denser and stronger. I remember that, one time, my mom showed me this work and I was struck by it.
-“Dear Piero, do you remember that time I made you dirty your hands with green pastel and you wiped them on a sheet of paper?”
- “Yes, of course! It was the day I came for the pastels, but maybe it wasn’t just green, but yellow and blue, too.”
A LIFE’S PAINTING
This is the title I gave to my mom’s “Infinite Painting”. The color is transformed and the surface of the oil color grows thicker. This creation is more special than the others because it seems like the work is older. I still remember when she kept it in a dark corner of her studio, unknown to everything. She wouldn’t let me touch it. I’d look at it and could see that the surface was much thicker than the other paintings.
- My mom’s usual comment: “Dear Piero, one time I’d also like for you to paint a layer on my painting. Why don’t you come to my studio and we’ll make a color and smear it on Infinite Painting? You know, I’m thinking about moving the panting from the dark corner to a spot in my studio that’s lit up.”
- “Great!”
TRAIN PAINTING
This isn’t just any old painting. It hits you like a train! That’s why I called it this way. This is one of my mom’s masterpieces I like the most (“Taking Flight”).
- “Mom, how did you come up with the idea?”
- “I thought about a painting coming off the wall and taking flight.”
- “I have an idea for your work! Two Train Paintings. One facing the other as they meet in the middle of the room.”
THE ARTIST
An artist is a person searching for a goal he then shows others. Each artist has a style, rules. Each artist may decide to: build, paint, film, invent, fantasize . . . Some have no rules and make random art. Each artist has his own precise rule, that in which art can be anything. At times an artist is so busy and has to travel, like my mom. When an artist thinks, he thinks a lot and isn’t able to stop working. Why? An artist enters another dimension where art may appear and disappear. This means that an artist thinks like an animal, and if it’s distracted it may become aggressive. But this aggression never had any effect on my mom. She is totally calm and concentrated. Before starting, an artist always begins from a point which is that base. The point is very, very small. You can’t even see it. But even though you can’t see it it’s the essence of the artist’s work. It’s the most important thing inside. It’s the initial, fundamental part, the origin. In fact, that point is true art.
- Piero: “You know why? Because it’s the base of the work of each thing. The origin of each thing is a point. The origin of each thing always begins from there.”
THE STORY OF AN ARTIST
A person who doesn’t know about his abilities (a kid when he’s small does things freely, but he doesn’t know he has this talent) loses the chance of becoming an artist. Instead, over time, he discovers this and quickly turns into an artist. His works grow more and more beautiful, because the artist learns new things. Usually his best art is the simplest one.
- “Piero, what do you look for in a work? In art?”
- “Its simplicity. Beautiful but simple, essential.”
THINKING AND REFLECTING
Before starting a work, an artist thinks about how he’s going to make it, where it will be, how it should appear, but above all what it will be. Usually, he doesn’t reflect on it, but he thinks about it. There’s a difference between thinking and reflecting. Thinking means trying to find new things, to imagine and fantasize about them. Instead, reflecting means trying to remember old things you’ve already thought about.
- “Piero, in your opinion, is reflecting or thinking more important?”
- “For me it’s reflecting, because things already thought about are re-elaborated, making them better. So they become more beautiful.”
THE ARTWORK’S POINT OF VIEW
We’ve heard about the points of view of artists and people. But what about a work of art?
A work of art can look at you in different ways: for the way you make it, how you represent it, and how you look for it.
- For how you make it:
For example, if you make it spectral, you won’t even be able to look at it because it’s scary.
- For how you represent it:
For example, if you portray it happy, you can only expect it will become so.
- For how you look for it:
For example, if you represent flight, it will joyfully think it can fly, but will resign itself happily when it understands it’s not true flight.
Who checks you? Who observes you? Who listens to you? It’s the work of art. Obviously, this is a metaphor! The work of art is the final judge.
- Piero’s question: “What’s the purpose of a work of art?”
- Piero’s answer: “To make us understand an artist’s feelings.”
BLANK PAINTING, FILLED
In a work, you may use any material, any base. You can paint, you can use an object, you can use an object that doesn’t exist, or you may leave your painting blank.
- Piero’s question: “What do you see?”
- Piero’s answer: “A blank canvas with an image, at your choice, that you can imagine as you like. For example, I imagine a rainbow, a tiny person, many things, I don’t know . . . This is the loveliest work of all because it can be what you want. The same thing can also be an empty pedestal covered with a glass dome. You can imagine what you wish on an empty base.”
EXERCISES FOR YOUNG ARTISTS
Exercises for students to understand what your personal inclination is:
Mother:
- Make a thing and then destroy it. Then you make another from scratch and totally different.
- Make a thing, destroy it. No, take it apart and then make another using the same material it’s already made with.
- Every day (for a certain period of time) make the same thing.
Piero:
- Make a thing, a painting, using only your hands and a canvas, without color.
- Before going to a painting workshop.
- “Piero, what is painting for you?”
- “Painting is the artist’s imagination that is put on a canvas. The artist may then change it.”
THE END
“Mom, it’s not right for you to take advice. An artist isn’t an artist if he doesn’t use his own mind.”
