A reader remarks upon the limited amount of time human beings have on the planet, as symbolized by the limited number of heartbeats allocated by fate to each person.  This, the reader implied, was an imperative to live life to the fullest.

Matt responds:

I appreciate your comment and insight into the individual responsibility that we all have.  I think that’s one of the great wastes of the universe:  We think we’re marginalized and can’t make a difference, but as you so aptly say, we have the time, the space, and the place.  Either we’ll be an actor on the stage or sit quietly in the corner, wondering why we’re not in the play.  Well, the only reason we’re not in the play is that we don’t get up, put on the costume, and act our part!

That speaks to individual responsibility and initiative.  I personally don’t think it matters what we do, as long as we do something to help this planet become more loving and accepting of us and them, whoever they are.

That, then, speaks to the old saying that “they” will take care of it.  But we always must remember:  There is no “they”; there is only “us,” and that means people working responsibly within their own spheres for a common goal.  We don’t need a bucket of water in the morning and a kick in the ass in the afternoon to keep us going.  It’s built into us.  We just have to find it and ride it!

Matt

A reader points out that painter Robert Ryman earned fame and notoriety using a monochrome palette, most conspicuously in works all in white.  The reader asks Matt whether he would possess the desire or obsession to paint only in one color?

Matt responds:

I applaud people with the dedication and ability to concentrate on one thing for a long period of time.  I myself am definitely a wanderer, but I wander with my friends.  Sometimes we’re at the front of the line, dancing; sometimes we’re in the back, straggling.  But I’m always with my friends, which are the colors of the rainbow in all their mutations, strengths, and weaknesses.

I always thought in all endeavors of my life that perception is reality.  If I ever get to the very end of my knowledge about a given subject, I’ll go on to something completely different.  One of my lawyers used to maintain that if all the wars being waged in the world were suddenly to end, that I would say:  “Oh hell!  Peace has broken out!”

It’s probably my greatest obsession to turn victims into victors and spread peace throughout the world.  But I always come with my little gang of color to throw it around hither and thither and yon, so that a dark color becomes a light color, and a very sunny powerful red explosion will be calmed down by some gray or dark brown.  They’re always dancing around, fighting, playing, creating havoc in my little world that I spin around this planet with.

Thanks for the question,
Matt

Hello, bloggers.

During my most recent trip to Argentina, there were four times in a one-day period—once by a mother with a little child, once by a television news reporter, and twice by students—I was asked to define peace.  I can’t remember the last time prior to that, that the question was asked to me.

I thought about it, and I answered that one manifestation of peace is finding a way to coexist between you and another person, animal, insect, or any other creature that inhabits your world but is completely different.  You could probably say that’s peace.

Another definition for those four questions that day was:  As we stand under the umbrella—black and white people, orange people, purple people, male, female, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist—all completely disagreeing, arguing and debating, never coming to conclusions, actually hating and detesting some of the things the other people stand for, but nonetheless accepting the reality that they could have their opinion that might be different than outs—and that even though I may hate them, I must love them.

It sounds impossible but it is not, because if we all stand under the umbrella, if we believe there is a God, then that God must love all of us in one form or another.  And if we’re not made by God, then we all come from the same universe and are made from the same stardust, so if we’re condemning someone, we’re really condeming ourselves.

No matter how you rationalize it, we’ve all got to get along together.  That’s what peace is.  No one has to change if they don’t want to.  We just have to accept and honor each person as an inhabitant of this great planet. 

Matt

A reader asks Matt whether he was in Chicago’s Grant Park on Election Night, as Presidential candidate and now President-Elect Barack Obama gave his victory speech.

Matt responds:

I was very, very proud to be a Chicagoan that evening, although my favorite place to be is not in a crowd.

I’ve been invited many times to go to different boxes where you can watch football games and other events, and I can count on one hand the times I have been in those positions. I wake very early in the morning, sometimes 4 or 5, so I like to go to bed about 9pm.

I had voted early, so I had things to do on Election Day.  Afterwards I went home, planted myself in front of the TV, and watched until the last scene of the great Chicago event was broadcast. I listened to the speech of unity by John McCain and the absolutely incredible speech by Barack Obama.  I think this country is very blessed to have our new leader, with his ability to talk to us about very important subjects.

I have many friends overseas, and after midnight, my phone rang off the hook...  The calls kept rolling in until 2 or 3 in the morning, to congratulate us on such a ground-breaking election.

I know many people who were down in Grant Park, and it was wonderful to hear their stories, but my preference is to sit, probably by myself, thinking about what I’m watching and periodically jumping up and yelling and screaming to myself like a crazy man.  During this whole election season, as we went through all these many months of political activitiy, sometimes I’d be screaming with glee and sometimes with rage.  But the only one who would have witnessed it would have been my dog, if I had one!

I should record myself with sound so I can see what I’m doing while I watch the television.  I react as if I’m a crowd of one.  I’m as agitated or as happy as everybody in the actual audience.  That’s one of my many idiosyncrasies.

I have a friend who owned one of the major baseball teams.  I’ve always been invited to the World Series, and I always think to myself, “Hmm..  That’s my time in Purgatory if I ever went.”  The same way with any other big event.  I’d rather read about it or watch it on television than be in the roaring crowd.

Yours truly,
Lamb the Hermit

Aaron Voronoff...

of http://abztraktsynergy.blogspot.com/

...remarks upon Matt’s unorthodox art-making techniques, including his penchant for burying canvases in the sand at his Florida Keys home, and casting the canvases out to sea and watching them roll back to him on the waves.

Matt responds:

Aaron, thanks for talking about the unorthodox manifestation of art.  I always believe that as artists, we should continue to think outside the box.  How can we manipulate, coerce, and tempt the materials?  What environment can we introduce them to that will mutate, erase, or enhance all the different materials that we introduce into the canvas or wood or whatever, over a period of time, to bring forward something unique, challenging, and hopefully educational to us?

I just spent three hours with Nancy Ellen Abrams, the co-author along with Joel R. Primack, of the book The View from the Center of the Universe.  The two of them travel all over the world now, speaking to groups, and they were in Chicago last week giving one of their talks.  Nancy and I explored many parts of her book, and we also talked about what I’m doing.  It was a very, very wonderful opportunity to meet her and exchange ideas about this universe we find ourselves in.

The theme of that book puts into words much of my meditation about who we are, where we came from, and why we’re sitting on this planet.  One of the main axioms is that we are all part of the Big Bang.  Each and every one of us has billions of years of knowledge within us that we know nothing about.  Our goal in the time we have on this planet is to reach in and find that place that is unique and to ourselves, and present it to the world so that we’ll all have a little bit better knowledge of who and what we are.

Throwing an unstretched canvas into an ocean is one way I do that.  I remember when I did some other pieces of work.  I called a friend of mine who was a gallery owner and asked, “Did you ever hear what would happen if we took a piece of art and put it in a washing machine?”

She called back two weeks later and said, “As far as I can tell, no one has ever heard of anybody throwing a painting into a washing machine.”

So I thought, “That’s great!  Maybe I’ll be the first!”

I never did put it in the drier.  My wife would have had my head.  I was tempted to go to a public laundromat and do it, but the whole neighborhood would have been coming after me in spattered clothing.

Orthodoxy, unorthodoxy, innovation, and exploration are all part of real life and artistic life.  So it’s a great feeling of freedom to be able to throw a painting into the ocean and wonder when it returns what happened to it.  What great adventure did it have?  Did the turtles and the seaweed like it as it floated by?  Are there any art critics in the ocean?  Possibly the sharks, who thought about eating it but rejected it.  I felt despondent about that.  I suppose subconsciously I was trying to make tastier art piece for some of the more predatorial fish, but I don’t believe I ever succeeded. 

Thanks for the question, and keep on keepin' on,

Matt

A reader who is Buddhist observes that some of Matt’s mantras—such as “It is what it is” and “You can only do what you can do”—are reminiscent of tenets of Zen Buddhism.  The reader asks Matt whether he is, or has ever been, a Buddhist.

Matt responds:

I’m a Roman Catholic.  I believe in Christ and his message, but I revere the message of Buddha and the principles that guide the Buddhist life and philosophy.  I also revere the Jewish and Islamic faiths, the American Indian spiritualism, and so on.

It’s too bad that we always have to put labels on things.  I’m against labels, because it gives the impression of, “Open the bottle and drink the milk.”  There are no nuances; there is just a scrambled-up process that is difficult to define.

The question of who and what we are goes much deeper than labels.  It goes to the core of what we really believe in.  In many cases, what you say is not what you do; it’s just a lot of bullshit that makes people think you know what you’re talking about.

I really admire people who have a faith in something and an ideal in something.  Because all of the great philosophies of the world can enrich, empower, and challenge the spirituality of the human being.  I can’t think of a philosophy or a religion whose sole job is to make you skinny or fat, a better lover or a better hater, a cooler dude or a wimpier swine.

The nature of our spirituality is manifested in many cases by the sign that we carry with us:  the cross, the Star of David, the crescent...  but they’re really much deeper than the sign itself.  The history of them is really what puts the meat on the bones and the blood in the veins.

That’s a long answer to a short question.  In the old country, it’s what we call “good Irish bullshit.”  But in this case, I’m very sincere.

Matt

A reader remarks that it is only the dark that brings the light into relief; evil and good contextualize one another by their opposition.

Matt responds:

I think what we need every day is a big spoon of castor oil and another spoon of honey.  One will get us going, and one will make us feel good.

Life is about the ups and downs.  People who think they float through life footloose and fancy-free are deluding themselves.  I don’t think anyone really floats through life.  We all have our trials and tribulations.

It’s presumptuous for me to stand in somebody’s shoes and try to figure out why they do the things they do.  I think each of us has our unique chemistry of how we react to the stimuli around us.  Some people see a starving person and think, “Thank God I’m fat.”  Other people say, “How can I help them?”  Other people say, “Give them fish.”  Others say, “Teach them to fish.”

I believe that seeing the yin and yang, the right and the left, the good and the bad, the hungry and the prosperous, agitates us in such a way that we have to say to ourselves:  “I can’t do everything, but what can I do?  What is my unique place in this universe?”

For me, in my own life, if I’m standing in a dentist office, and everybody around me has an aching mouth, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.  But if I’m sitting with some young artists, I can talk to them about how I got to be where I am and how did I get there, what were my mistakes, what were my strengths...  so that people don’t have to make the same mistakes that I did, over and over again (although sometimes maybe it’s better to make your own mistakes).

But all of this really comes down to:  What is my particular role, and do I really care about it?  Do I really want to do anything about it, or do I, as people say, “float through life”?

We don’t have the faintest idea what hidden good and bad things people do in their lives.  We individually know what we’re doing; I don’t think everybody else has the time to give a damn about it, or could possibly know where we’re going, what we’re doing, what we’re thinking.  I think we should live our lives and do the best we can, and that’s all we can do.

Thanks for the comment,
Matt