Hello, bloggers!

By now we know that the Saints won the Super Bowl...

The game got me thinking about the way the game of football relates to my art.  Here's a post from before the game got underway on Super Bowl Sunday.

I got up early today (Sunday, February 7, 2010)...  Usually I paint purses very early in the morning, then I get on my Power Plate and get 15 or 20 minutes of exercise.  Then I go to my studio...

This morning I took 30-by-40-inch canvases—24 of them—and did a one-person Dip.  Then I got home and, to get ready to watch the hype and excitement of the Super Bowl, I sat in front of the ocean and listened to the soundtrack of Out of Africa, so that the excitement of football would be another jolt.

Then I started thinking about the similarities of what I do in my art and the people who are putting together the power of the game of football.  It’s not only a game of brute power, but also of mind power.  The ability to think of all these different moves—all the timing, the code words, the unspoken messages that go on during these Super Bowl games—are about super teams.

These are not amateurs.  These are people who are well trained, completely in charge of all of their senses, because they must be completely alert to everything around them and all of the pushing, shoving, tackling, and running that go on.  To keep yourself, for those periods of time, completely in tune with what’s going on, is something to behold and to be admired.

I try in my own little feeble way, to be similar in my studio.  It does affect my art.  I look at it as a learning ground.It struck me as I watched all the analysis of football, that there’s a great similarity between the game and my art:  the preparation and thought that goes into it before the game...

Geniuses are figuring out the different moves:   how the team will move, how the other team will respond, how a ball is being thrown in a direction and will be able to be caught and go on to a touchdown or a sizeable gain.

All of the infinite recognitions of the differences of space and time are taken into effect:  the wind, the rain, whether it’s cold or hot...  maybe even the perceived limp in one of the defense people; maybe in the weight difference between the line and how there’s a minute advantage to going one way or another, and how these things are not thought out in the field as cognizant events, but are really built into the psyche and perception and immediate recognition of the players.

It brings me to the kind of art that I hope to master, where I honor the power of the materials.

I am the conductor, not the dictator.  I work with the flow.  I can’t change yellow to black, I can’t reverse the flow of gravity; everything is going to be what it is within the framework.  And because of the methodology of my procedures, I have to react immediately.  That comes from observation, practice, and knowledge of what things are going to do placed within a particular field, whether it be linseed oil, polyurethane, water, etc.

The paints are all going to react in a predictable way.  But if I’m on the cliff in Ireland with a gale coming, or in my studio in Florida with the air conditioning on, or how am I going to tilt the canvases up or down to affect the viscosity—these are immediate reactions that are learned and stored within the unfathomable memory and instinct.

That’s why I believe telling an artist not to make a lot of art is counterproductive.  I think we learn new ways by breaking new ground.  But if we are going to be slaves to our minds and to the knowledge that we have, it detracts from our risk-taking and visionary processes.  That’s what the game is all about.

Our dreams could be intercepted, but if things go as you wish them to go, it’s a touchdown.

To me, the spice of life is risk.  Tolerable risk in a field where you know what you’re doing and are enjoying it and are a master but not a complete master—you are also a student.

At some point in time I may make a touchdown, and other times I may make a miss.

I love it, just as I enjoy the mystery, the power, the intrinsic manipulation of time, distance, weight, all perceived by a human being to transport an object from one place to another under great stress.  It’s a great field of learning, and I feel it very exciting.

Matt

A reader asks Matt whether it is possible or advisable to love and tolerate everyone, including people who do bad things.  Is there a place for our judgment or even self-righteousness in the face of evil, or must we disregard judgment for universal love?

Matt responds:

You have asked a seminal question, which has to be defined and addressed before we can reach any kind of semblance of peace and understanding in our species.

That’s why I call for a New Los Alamos, where questions such as yours and a myriad of others will be brought up and discussed.

If we leave it to private interpretation, all we have to do is read history, where people thought it was perfectly all right to put people in chains and treat them like livestock, make them work under horrendous conditions, or, if there was an allegation that they had done something wrong, to take people out and hang them just because so-and-so said such-and-such.

Reading our history, we don’t find a lot of tolerance and understanding.  We find a lot of axioms.  The Nazi theme was if we get rid of the Jews and a wide umbrella of other people, the world would be a better place.

We can see where the lines are, but they become difficult to understand when we stand back and look historically at how we treat each other.  These questions are truly the ones that have to be answered.

Every race, culture, small minority, and great majority will have many different answers for all of those questions.

In today’s headlines, we can look at a question such as sexual preference or abortion, and we don’t seem to be able to come to any concensus on those supposedly easy questions.

When we get into even more complex things that we as a species encounter, we have our work cut out for us.  But getting the right forum, the right people, the right time and place, has to be left up to the type of people who took an idea of “Can we build a bomb that can blow up the whole world?” and make such a creation.  They did it.

That caliber of people has to now come forward and say, “Can we find out how—in this scatterbrained serendipity unpredictable wonderful loving joyful stupid killing species—to live together under some semblance of order and respect so that we don’t completely destroy this planet?

Luckily, the animals, insects, and fish, don’t have the same problems.  Possibly they worked them out eons ago and are much further along than we are.

Matt

P.S...When I look at my pool, my natural pond that I have in Ireland with a couple hundred fish, I sit there and think, What if this were the world?

There’d be some fish in the corner trying to figure out how to communicate with others on the other side.  There would be some dressed to the nines, there would be a couple idiots painting with their fines, there would be some trying to steal food away from the others.  It would be a complete world in this pond.

But now, instead, being fish and not the human species, they just swim around eating the food and having a hell of a time.  I often wonder, How do they get to this state of bliss?

A reader congratulates Matt on his participation in the recent “I have a dream” art show in Chicago.

Matt responds:

Thank you.

I was honored and humbled to be asked to be part of that program.

As you know, it started in Spain, and through seeing the enthusiasm of people outside the United States for a speech that took place in Washington, D.C., and the passion, the inquisitiveness, the honor that the world has given this speech and event—I don’t think that aspect is recognized in many quarters.

The U.S.A. is looked at by many different cultures.I have found that when you really know people, they will make a statement about what they really believe.  Every aspect of what goes on in the United States is perceived and topical to other countries.  It strikes me as very important that one speech could be singled out and examined by so many different cultures and nationalities.

We’re always hearing the negativities about the problems we have, but the working-through of the problems, as difficult as they are, really singles us out as a great experiment that is for the most part working.

And that is not only in the U.S. but all around the world.  So we must keep in mind that it matters.  We have to keep developing.

As I said in my remarks to the people at the event, the breaking-down of the color barrier for the Presidency is one event of many.  The next one we have, will be the realization that a woman could very well be a President of the United States.

The day of the election in which Barack Obama prevailed, I got phone calls from all over the world from friends of mine, not only congratulating the man, but congratulating the United States on the symbolic leadership of people of good faith accepting the best leader, regardless of color.

So we’ll keep moving, four steps forward, two steps back.  We’ll get there sometime.

Matt

A reader asks Matt whether he has read The Politician, the new exposé of former Presidential candidate John Edwards, whose political career was derailed by a sex scandal.

The reader asks whether Edwards’ risky behavior during his affair qualifies in some way as the kind of risk-taking Matt advocates.

Matt responds:

I haven’t read the book, and I won’t be reading it.  I find it a waste of time to read about this sort of thing when you can see it all on television in two minutes.

When it comes to the sanctity of marriage, I come from a very old school and a background that was inundated in the culture of “Till death do us part.”

But I also have children that are divorced and remarried, and I believe that was the right thing for them to do.  I’m of the school that “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”

I think people do what they do.

There are many different kinds of risk-taking.  The risk of sneaking around behind people’s backs for sexual intercourse is a completely different risk-taking than the risk someone in Argentina takes when they take and umbrella and walk for peace in a military parade.  That’s the kind of risk-taking I’m talking about.

Or the teacher who, after school, asks the kids to participate in a peace project, knowing that maybe none of them will come to it.  Those are risk-takers.  Risk-taking has many different connotations.

I think it’s under the category of “Stupid Idiot” for somebody who’s campaigning for President to be running down the back stairwell after supposedly having an illicit encounter while his wife is dying of cancer.  That’s not a risk-taker.

My only comment on John Edwards is:  Thank God he’s not President.

There have been a number of Presidents who, after their Presidencies ended, were exposed for the truth of their relationships or sexual encounters.  There are arguments on both sides as to whether it did or didn’t matter to the safety of the public.  I don’t feel qualified to comment on those kinds of situations.

People are people.  I find that in all aspects, the human animal is a very strage creature, as lately demonstrated by the cover-up in the Roman Catholic Church of child abuse.  That is not risk-taking; that is irresponsible, detestable actions.

At least a hit-man is a hit-man, and everybody knows it, and they make no bones about it because they don’t put on special garments and ask to be called The Honorable This or That...  They take pride in being known as an SOB.

Although everybody has different tastes and ideas, these are the problems that we are going to face as a species when we get around to trying to figure out who we are and what we’re doing here and why we’re doing it.  No one said it was going to be easy.

Those who try are risk-takers and visionaries becoming known as foolish people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing.

Matt

It is futile to put lipstick on a pig.

Hello, bloggers!

Joseph Campbell was one of the true intellects of the world, sent here to challenge us, expand our minds, teach us to be ourselves, and give us the keys to enter into the unknown.

Whenever I watch or listen to him or read anything he wrote, I can feel my mind being stretched in all different directions.  Some of those directions make me comfortable, some make me uncomfortable.  Some challenge me, some make me feel content, some make me feel so educated, some make me feel like a complete dummy.

This was the genius of Joseph Campbell.

We each see statements and ideas through our own prism, so one man’s oyster is another man’s pearl is another man’s ball of shit, is another man’s piece of gold...

I believe that’s how the human spirit and species has generated over a period of years, and that’s why I think art is such a metaphor for the human race:  We all look at the same painting, but we all see something different.

I always go back to the mantra of Alcoholics Anonymous:  Change the things we can, accept the things we can’t, and know the difference.  That, to me, is the big challenge.

I am idiotic enough to believe it’s possible to change the world.  Most people tell you it’s impossible.  I don’t know the difference there.

If someone wants me to move the Empire State Building down the block, I will probably say I can’t do it, but that would probably be easier than changing the whole structure that we call “society.”

Maybe we pick and choose our battles.  Maybe, to survive, we consciously or subconsciously look the other way and let somebody else do what we should actually do ourselves.

As many projects as I do around the world, I have to say no to many other projects because I don’t have the time, the knowledge, the wisdom, or the strength to do them.

After long meetings when they say to me, “This is what you should do,” I usually say:

“You really and truly have identified a crisis from all standpoints, but this isn’t what I should do; I’m doing what I think I should do right now; this is what you should do; this is your passion, this is your windmill.  So be at it!  I’m not going to bullshit you and tell you I’m going to do it all for you!”

Maybe it pisses them off somewhat, but they get over it and they find people to get in their line and help them with their march.

We now have millions of people who have participated in our “Lamb Umbrellas for Peace.”  Those millions began with a dummy undertaker who thought he was an artist.

So onward and upward, and keep on along your own path, joyfully singing down the road.

Matt

In response to a recent blog post about the value of money, a reader asks Matt whether it is possible that the people who are poorest in money may be richest in spirit.

Matt responds:

Perception is reality.

I was born in the Great Depression in Bridgeport, which was a hard-working, poor area of the city of Chicago.

But in my recollection, nobody knew they were poor, and if they did, they didn’t give a damn.  Everybody helped each other and lived life to the fullest, whatever that meant, even if you maybe got to eat meat only once a week.

The perception is that money makes us happy, but that is a false notion.

On the other hand, people say that if we have all kinds of money, we will never be happy.  That is also false.

We live between our ears, and we perceive people not as they really are, but from our own standpoint.

Those people who seem the happiest sometimes are the saddest, and vice versa.  Look at John Belushi, who was the epitome of comedy but died of an overdose of drugs, trying to be happy by an artificial means.

The only thing we can know for sure in this universe is what we see and what we know.  I think it’s a fool’s errand to try to figure out what other people are thinking about or trying to do.  I think that’s a good way to spend your life if you want to waste your time.

Rich people as poor in spirit and vice versa, as axioms, is something I don’t believe fits into the human equation.

The human species is a very difficult, intriguing, and completely baffling animal.  Just watch the crowds going by.  It’s a cheap and wonderful form of entertainment!

Matt

Hello, bloggers!

I was honored and thrilled to be able to address the young people who attended the Martin Luther King “I have a dream” art show.

I believe young people are the leaders of the world.  They have the tools.

I love to see and hear the enthusiasm, the spirit, and the participation of the young people I talk to all over the world.

People ask me:  “Are you hopeful when you’re going through these different events?”

And the answer is:  Absolutely.

Take it from the mouth of an old man who’s been circling the world:  Change will happen, but not by happenstance, but by design, and it will be initiated not by the old but the young.

So grab it, hold it, push it, inflate it, float with it.  You are riding the most powerful stallion in the world:  world peace.

It will take you to unbelieveable places.

Have no fear.

Just do it.

Matt

Paraphrase of Yeats:

Being Irish in heritage, I have an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustains me through temporary periods of joy.

Hello, bloggers!

I hope you had a great Martin Luther King, Jr., Day!

I want to tell you about my experience with the fabulous “I have a dream” art show, which I was honored to participate in.

It began when I got up at 3 o’clock in the morning in the Florida Keys, took an early flight to Fort Lauderdale, jumped on another plane, and got off at 10 o’clock in Chicago.

My granddaughter Rose and her boyfriend Dan picked me up and whisked me off to my studio, where I met with a contingent from Spain.  We talked art for the next three hours and had an incredible discussion.

I went back to my apartment and got changed.

My daughter Sheila called me and said, “There are about 200 young children who have been at the NBC Tower since early in the morning, viewing the artwork and listening to Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech as recited by one of the students.”

The people from the school wanted me to speak with the children, which is my favorite endeavor.  So I grabbed a taxi, went over, went up the elevator, gave my speech, did my song and dance, shook hands with all of them, and talked to them about the artwork.  It was a great experience and adventure, a good give-and-take.

I told these children that they are the most important people in the world.  They will make the world that they will create, not that old people like me create.  They are the leaders.

The students were very attentive.  They knew exactly what I was talking about.

Beforehand they had written essays.  Four students got up and read them to the whole group, which was very interesting and moving.

At that point we opened the doors, and the guests started arriving, probably about 300 people.

Stedman Graham was there and gave a wonderful speech to the young people.  There was a great program that followed, with six speakers.  There were many dignitaries from the city, the state, the country, and around the world.  Everyone was just delighted with the quality of the presenters and the spirit of the whole evening.

So many people came up to me and said how much they enjoyed looking at the artwork, listening to the testimonies, and interacting with each other.

There were visitors from Spain, France, Germany, and England, and we had communications from other countries as well.

I want to thank my daughter Sheila, who was the guiding light of this whole program.  From beginning to end, she and Stedman’s group, Athletes Against Drugs, put on a world-class endeavor, which was worthy of Dr. King’s great speech.

The thing that everyone realized at the end of the evening was that this speech had not only affected the United States, but the whole world.  It says something about the true power of the spoken word and the power of peace when articulated by people of good will.

There was such spirit there in that room.  When people left, they were just on fire!  But as always, the challenge is to take the message and run with it.  We have to work our asses off to get things done.

To all of you who came or supported us from afar, thank you for helping to make it such a great celebration.

Matt