Today we’d like to introduce you to Thomas Fedro.
Thomas, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I’ve always drawn as long as I can remember. I started when I was young by copying all the Sunday comics like, Beatle Bailey and Garfield. I didn’t really get into art until college though. I was very involved with music and was a music major in school.
I became very interested in Patrick Nagel in the late eighties and decided to buy some paint and try to do one on the back of my jean jacket. That was a huge hit and I started doing them for all my friends at school. After graduation I got a job at IBM as a marketing assistant and ended up being taught how to do computer graphics. I did that for a few years (while selling my Nagle jackets to various boutiques in Chicago) and then was hired by a head hunter to be a creative director for an advertising agency.
It was then that I decided to move from jean jackets to actual canvas and I began reproducing all sorts of art for people who wanted something they saw by another artist to be in their colors. About 21 years ago I met my ex-wife Alicia, who very quickly talked me out of the corporate world in order to pursue an art career doing my own work. It took about ten of those twenty-one years to develop my style and a following before I really became successful at this art thing. Ultimately it was being discovered by, at the time, the GM of the Allegro Hotel in Chicago which is a hot spot for celebrities and musicians. He chose me to do one of the Cows in Chicago’s Cows on Parade Fest and then hooked me up with Rent in New York and Second City for which I did commemorative commission pieces.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
As a painter I am interested in making the work of the soul more visible and real, enriching our everyday lives. It is in these moments when our soul speaks to us in a quiet, perhaps even a silent voice – wielding great power and influence at both a conscious and unconscious level.
A primary role of my art is to provide clarity and insight into issues of soul as inherent elements of man’s role in creation. As awareness and consciousness increases, so does the clarity with which we are able to perceive the exquisite beauty and wholeness of creation. Ultimately, art acts as both a mirror and a lens that gives presence and visibility to that which previously was unseen, unknown and not understood, often residing in the underground of the conscious.
It is worthy to note that in this endeavor one learns that – the perception of all great beauty always has an element of “strangeness” and in its expression is an opportunity to truly know the perfection of all creation.
Painting is a universal language and its truths are accessible to all who view an image regardless of culture, nationality, age, language or status in life. The paintbrush is a tool that crosses cultures, breaks boundaries and grants access and connections that are not available through any other means.
In my work as a painter I seek expression and a deeper knowledge of these issues and in that pursuit a profound experience of being intensely alive. It is here that one’s life has resonance within our innermost being, knowing the intense rapture of life. By following our passion and our bliss and by being willing to enter the “underground”, we find paths that have been there all the while, waiting for each of us. The life we live becomes the life we should be living and one has the opportunity to know the fire of passion and the continuing renewal of the life within. On this wondrous path, being an artist makes me become an instrument of storytelling, spirituality, faith, seeing, knowing, exploration and celebration.
What do you know now that you wished you had learned earlier?
For the new artists out there I say “Never give up. It took me ten years to get where I am but now couldn’t be happier. Keep trying to get better as an artist and never stop trying to re-invent yourselves.” For my collectors, “Thanks for all your support and remember, you can never have too many Fido originals!!”
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
You can find me all over the internet. Just google Fidostudio…
Contact Info:
- Address: 1230 Oboe Ct
Wheeling, Il 60090 - Website: Fidostudio.com
- Phone: 847-204-2840
- Email: Fidostudio@comcast.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fidostudio
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fidostudio/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/fidostudio
- Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/fidostudio
Image Credit:
Fidostudio 2018
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