Claudia N. Nolte
Born and raised in Europe.
Has actively pursued painting as an art form since she was a young teenager.
Her languages are German, Italian, English and "Astrology" and some Spanish.
She studied in England, Switzerland and Germany and traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia and North America and lived in India before settling in California in 1991 where she still lives and works.
Claudia took drawing lessons at a renowned Berkeley college but has otherwise decided against art school and rather prefers learning with a mentor. (Her watercolor "MASKS" has been published on the cover of an award-winning Art & Literary Journal in 1998.)
In the year 2000 she started her series of oil-paintings (canvas or paper) with favorite subjects being Spirals, Desert Views & Architecture and most recently: Archetypes of the Greek mythology.
Her paintings have been purchased by Private as well as Corporate clients in the United States and Europe.
She had various shows (Solo and group shows) in California.
The most recent one was featured at the Swiss Consulate in downtown San Francisco. In 2010, the oil painting "Spirale Imperfetto" was chosen as a book cover for the title #127: Valley of Diamonds: Adventures in Number and Time with Marie-Louise von Franz by J. Gary Sparks at the canadian book publisher Inner City Books in Toronto.
Aside from her paintings, Claudia continues to study and consult in astrology and is building an increasing international client base. (See testimonials in the Astrology section)
Further she enjoys spending time in her small garden with fragrant flowers and plants, preferable with a good cup of tea and some fine pastries as well as exploring the various Hot Springs in the West of the USA.
Claudia also worked with ceramic tiles, creating designs evoking far-off times and places.
Some of her favorite artists are Paul Klee, August Macke, J.M. William Turner, Miriam Tinguely, G.L. Bernini, Gianbecchina and Gaudi.
“Art does not reproduce the visible, but makes visible.” Paul Klee - Swiss/German Painter (1879-1940)
“In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn't matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!”
“Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only love can touch and hold them and be fair to them. - Always trust yourself and your own feeling, as opposed to argumentations, discussions, or introductions of that sort; if it turns out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner life will eventually guide you to other insights. Allow your judgments their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating…” Rainer Maria Rilke - Poet (1875-1925)
“And so
it has taken me
all of sixty years
to understand
that water is the finest drink,
and bread the most delicious food,
and that art is worthless
unless it plants
a measure of splendor in people's heart.
Taha Muhammed Ali - Palestinian Poet (1931-2011)
"So what", Copper Canyon Press