Art
Where does this great passion come from?
I'll start by asking myself what creativity is.
Who knows where it comes from, if it is innate or acquired over time. I think it is a skill that is acquired, in the end every child is curious about the world. Yes, creativity is the true engine of the human race. And not because it has allowed us to significantly improve our living conditions but because it makes it beautiful. It allows us to find solutions to problems, to see outside the circle, to understand the wonder of this world, to adapt to everything. And there is no creativity without curiosity. Maybe this is why I approached art. Since I was little I liked to ask myself questions and drawing has always been a great passion (I would have liked to be an animal designer at Disney in my childhood dreams).
Then, as often happens even in the best families, life (or perhaps better to say our society) makes you take other paths. I remember in middle school when it was time to choose what school I would go to, there was that question that was already going around in my head, and I assure you that I didn't put it there and neither did my parents. The question was "and then if you go to art school what will you go and do?". That question had cast doubt on my desire to draw. Well, I said to myself, then I'll go to high school, as if high school offered millions of opportunities in the world of work.
I study languages, fantastic teachers who watered the fertile soil of my mind.
Once I passed my final exams, that desire to draw returns and again in contrast that question. I tell myself that this time I'll go to the academy. Brera I think, but also Venice. And if this time I manage to put aside the question about my future, the crisis will make me change my plans. It's 2008, here we have to work. Studying outside is out of the question, costs are too high that I wouldn't even dare ask to cover them.
So what to do? According to normal logic, what better faculty for someone with a passion for creativity than the faculty of economics and commerce? I, who in high school had a four in mathematics and never would have said that I would need it.
So I enroll here in Trento, telling myself that if the others can do it, I can do it too. And so it seems... I pass the exams, I do well in the law ones, less so in the calculus ones but finally with good professors who explain the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the sovereign states well, I also understand how the world works (and I admit that I don't like it very much). It's also interesting to understand the difference between living the present or studying its history once it's over. Telling the story of the 1929 crisis has a certain flavor, you can imagine it but never really live it. Living through crises has another. History is the past, but you live current events from within and they don’t allow you that detachment that is useful for understanding how things really go (or maybe you understand them better because you’re in it?).
Okay… I was saying I was studying economics. Then something strange happened. I was missing an exam. Corporate finance to be precise, which was also explained by a fantastic professor. But there’s no way. I’m convinced I have some form of Asperger’s syndrome, according to which I’m a genius and what others take a month to study, I can learn in less than two weeks.
I find out at my own expense that I’m anything but a genius and in fact… in finance, luckily for you, I just can’t get it, and while I had to prepare for the exam, what do I decide to do? To search the magical world of the internet for how to paint with oil (note that I wasn’t asking Google for the formula for the beta of the performance of a market portfolio but “how to paint with oil”). There I see two artists painting glaciers. I was struck. I have always seen art as complex, a mess on top of a mess where you need a degree in aerospace engineering added to one in nanotechnology and a basic knowledge of drawing just to know that the brush must be dirtied on the bristles side, to understand why a chair is not a chair while a fire extinguisher is a fire extinguisher (thanks Giacomo… you opened up a whole new world to me that day).
Seeing those two artists made me understand that one does the art that one wants. I never thought I could draw what I liked, too banal and obvious. Instead, after seeing them, I understood that I could do it too! I could draw snow, one of the things I like most in the world! That day I told the finance exam that he shouldn't take it personally. He and his being too complicated weren't the problem. The problem was me. So we said goodbye and finally I threw myself into the arms of art. This took me to Greenland, to Svalbard, to Iceland, to Vienna, in short... To places that I would never have seen if I had continued to frequent finance and its personality disorders. Yes, following one's passions gives meaning to this life. It may also be a cliché but it's the truth. And in the end painting made me understand one thing. It's the simple things that are truly important. That simple doesn't mean easy. Simple means understanding what is superfluous and what isn't. And maybe that's why my painting is simple. It allows me to understand what to give importance to and what not.
