Hello, bloggers!

Part of our Internet outreach is our presence on Facebook and MySpace.

I want to invite you to visit these pages.

Our Facebook Matt Lamb Fan Page is here.

And my MySpace page is here.

I’ve been very honored by the people who have joined up and become fans our our pages on Facebook and MySpace.

Several fellow artists have found me online and said very nice things about my art, which I appreciate.  Some have asked me to look at their art and tell them my opinion.  This brings up a very interesting set of issues.

I’m very honored when people ask me to look at their art and comment on it, however, I don’t feel I am qualified to give a true appraisal of anybody’s art.

I come from a background of self-examination, experimenting constantly, but without any formal education in art.  I am on a pilgrimage which constantly is changing.  I’m constantly wandering from here to there to somewhere else, so there’s a consistency of change, but also a consistency of inconsistency within my art.

The traditional art field seems to revere consistency and the development of a particular progression where 2 always follows 1, then 3 comes next, and 4 comes after that.  Well, in my world, 89 is first, 3 is second, 2,083 is third, and I don’t know where the hell 5 is, although I’m constantly looking for it and wondering!

I am a constant optimist, but I’m also never quite satisfied.  I have to force myself to sign my paintings and declare that they’re through.  Still, I know that down the road I’m going to look at them and wonder, “Why did I stop there?”

In terms of the art that someone else creates...  Your art is you, and it would be presumptuous of me to tell you who you are.  Only through meditation, self-examination, beating yourself up, praising yourself, really and truly dissecting all of your weaknesses and strengths, can you come up with an inkling of who you are.

I believe I will never figure out who I am on this side of the grade, and never under any circumstances will I figure out who anybody else is!

But the great pilgrimage to me, is art.  To find that path that is challenging, and to go down it, whether it leads you over a waterfall, into a tsunami, or into a calm place—but wherever you go, to not be afraid.

And if someone walks over and tells you with great authority what you should do in your art, then just listen attentively, smile, and go your own way.  If they don’t like what you’re doing, that’s just tough shit.

Your art is your life and your journey.  If you’re the only one in the world who likes it, then so be it.  Or, if the world is beating a path to your doorstep, so be that, too.

There is only us.  We are the ones who create and manifest what we see, in whatever means we use to manifest it.

If that means sitting with a one-bristle paintbrush looking at a blank canvas for 14 hours before painting the first stroke, or if that means grabbing a gallon of paint and throwing it into a fan, then so be it!  That’s art!

Matt