Hey! I’m Claudio — born and raised in Napoli, Italy, now living in Amsterdam for the past 11 years. I’m a dad, a finance guy by day, and (as I recently rediscovered) a big fan of painting.
As a kid, I was one of those “annoying” types — good at school, good at sports, pretty decent at art too. But water polo was where I really made waves (pun fully intended). At 14, I was named the best player in Italy for my age; at 15, I made it onto the Under-16 national team. You’d think the movie soundtrack would start playing here, right? Nope. Turns out, not every coach thought I was the next big thing, and my national team days ended almost as fast as they started.
But stubbornness is a gift — I kept pushing, playing many years in Serie A2, always chasing that A1 dream, and later moved on to play in the Dutch Eredivisie. Meanwhile, I squeezed in a master’s degree cum laude in business economics (because why sleep?). And just as I hit the job market… boom! Italian public debt crisis, 2011. Long story short: fast-forward to the Netherlands, starting over, rebuilding, and learning that life often rewrites your script — whether you like it or not.
And then came the pandemic.
One random lockdown afternoon, desperate to keep my son Nicholas entertained and prevent a small-scale household revolution, we pulled out some paints. No plan, no pressure — just brushes, colors, and chaos. And to my surprise, something clicked. What started as a fun way to survive quarantine turned into late-night sketching, reading, experimenting… and rediscovering a passion I’d packed away years ago.
That’s how this chapter began — not with applause or medals, but with a messy table, a laughing kid, and a dad realizing he wasn’t done creating.
