A reader asks Matt whether he would still paint if mankind achieved world peace.
Matt responds:
Absolutely. We can rest assured, even if we’re living in paradise, that there’s always some bastard lying in wait to take it away from us. So we must constantly be nurturing and protecting our peace of mind and our rage towards inequality.
I use my art as a big bottle of whiskey. When I feel I should get drunk, I go to the studio, and it’s a big pressure-reliever for me to work with gay abandon with the spirits of the other side, and to work with color, form, and direction, whether it be figurative or abstract, something very beautiful or something very bizzare. All the things I see in the world come together in a big tornado that picks me up and floats me around into the universe and just shakes all the possibilities in my being.
Would that go away in a perfect world? In a perfect world, I would always be in that state. I’d probably have to get used to the vertigo from spinning around, but being human, I’d probably wonder, Is this all there is? In a world of milk and honey, I’d be asking, “Why can’t we have somebody come in and puke on the floors or do something outrageous to keep us all steamed up?”
I always say, “Would you like a paradise, a pair o’dice, or a deck of cards?” As I watch the human animal, I think that even in paradise, there’s going to be a deck of cards, and some people are going to try to stack the deck.
Matt
P.S... There probably will be fees in paradise. I don’t know for what. Maybe excess praying.