Hey, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Claudio Aguilar, and I'm an artist from the San Fernando Valley. I picked up drawing at a young age, but truthfully I don't remember exactly when. My interest in art probably sparked from the introduction most children get in early education, through paper and crayons. Outside the classroom, I remember seeing things that grabbed my attention and drawing them for fun. However, I never really enjoyed sharing my art with others throughout my childhood because I was shy. It was only until my senior year of high school that I took my first art class and discovered a new level of confidence in my practice. It was in this class that I came to the realization that art was a potential path for my life. After high school, I attended Pierce Community College and received my associate's degree in art.
Do you mind if I can relax a bit and have a little fun? Let me untie my shoes and throw my socks off. I want to change things up a bit. Forget the traditional "About Me Page." I'll tell you about a conversation I had with one of my head chefs not that long ago. I believe it'll give a good summarization of the current state of who I am as an artist and a bit of my background.
It was my last day as a sushi chef, and my shift came to an end. One of my head chefs invited me to sit with him and talk over a glass of wine. It was a form of showing acknowledgment and appreciation of each other's hard work — he as my teacher and I as his student. Sitting in the dining room area, we talked about various subjects. Eventually, the topic of my art came up.
As we talked about my art, I remember telling him that my journey as an artist until this point feels like I've just been sharpening my knife. I've been sharpening my style, color palette, and technique for accurately conveying a reference. As I was telling him this, I moved my hands as I would when sharpening my gyuto knife over a wet stone. I was repeating the motion of my left hand on the flat steel, my right hand on the wooden handle, and sliding my imaginary knife away from me at a forty-five-degree angle and resetting.
As sushi chefs we take pride in our knives. We understand our knives as linked to tradition and crucial for the day's work. The same pride goes for my art; style and technique. I sharpened my style like I sharpened my knife. I loved it, it was meditative. I got good at it. I can make an eye look like an eye and a nose look like a nose. I sharpened my art because I wanted it to look good, be distinct, and do all the talking for me. But underneath the visually pleasing, there were aspects I bypassed.
I want to convey more meaning in my art, a depth I often overlooked. Only recently have I been gradually exploring such concepts and bringing forward deeper aspects of myself into my art. To sushi chefs, knives are an extension of the individual holding them. They're refined tools made to assist the chef in bringing forward the essence of who they are.
I see it. I have my knife placed on the red fibers of a tuna loin. My knife is sharp, but it wrests on the incision created by its own weight. I haven't followed the motion through; I haven't made my cut yet but, I'm ready.