Claude Chaloux, Artist

To Claude, creating his work is something that he needs to do, not just something that he wants to do. Art is a way to express yourself, and everyone needs a way to express themselves. Sculpting is Claude’s way of expressing himself. When he gets an idea to create, he pushes that idea as far as it can go. Some ideas he has do not take very long to bring to life and others can take years. For example, Claude has an idea he is working on now that began quite awhile ago and he keeps building on it. One day a patron visiting his gallery asked Claude if he had any tattoos. His response was “no” because he had never been able to think of a design that he would want tattooed on his skin for life. After this person left he began to think of what he could design as a tattoo. This led to many drawings that he created which he called homo erectus because that is what man began as in the scientific evolution of life. One day he was showing these drawings to another patron in his gallery. The child with the patron pointed to the drawings and declared “Monsieur.” Claude then realized that he had been successfully able to communicate his idea when even a 2 year-old child understood his concept.

From there Claude began to created the little jewelry pieces seen to the right called homo erectus. Later he created another set of the same jewelry pieces with the arms up instead of down that he called homo sapiens. Then he moved on to creating sculptures with the homo erectus and homo sapiens idea. Eventually he began to draw them on paper and frame them. Some of these are pictured below. He then moved on to painting the homo erectus and homo sapiens on large sheets of parchment paper. The next step in his evolution of this idea is to acquire cured animal hide and begin to paint more of his homo sapiens designs on the skins to sell. Through this idea Claude was also finally able to design a tattoo that he was satisfied living with for the rest of his life, and had it tattooed on his arm.
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