A reader remarks that Matt’s “brash pronouncements” are reminiscent of the bravado for which Pablo Picasso was known.

The reader asks Matt whether he thinks the world would be a better place if everyone spoke their minds so freely.

Matt responds:

(photo above shows the exterior of the 2003 exhibition, LAMB MEETS PICASSO at the Centre-Picasso, Horta, Spain) 

We are all unique and have our own weaknesses and strengths.  We try to cover up our weaknesses and bring forward our strengths.

I believe we can crawl and we can run, we can punch and we can pet, we can sneeze and sniffle, we can do anything we want as individuals, but how much do we want to reveal?  Everybody has a Caspar Milquetoast part of their soul, and everybody has a General Patton part.  Which one are we going to put on?  Are we always Caspar or always Patton?

I think sometimes we go through phases, but where is our ultimate?  Where do we really want to end up?  I really wanted to end up where I could say what I wanted to say.  If people liked it, great; if people didn’t, tough shit.

I don’t know if Picasso was always Picasso.  Lamb was not always Lamb.  In my business life, I had to conform to rules and regulations, laws and time frames, religious beliefs and great pomp and ceremony that were part of ritualizations that were not up for discussion, but were frozen in place.  It was not about debating and discussing, it was about knowing what you were supposed to do and doing it.

To me, being an artist is about finding out who and what you are, what your interests are, what you don’t know a damn thing about, and pulling your strengths and weaknesses together in front of the world and saying, “Here I am, Mary Nobody Jones..  Like it or lump it, here’s who I am.”

In the reality of the universe, you’re no better and no worse than anybody else.  You are what you are, and people will classify you as a genius or an idiot.  What do you classify yourself as?  A success, a shirker, or a failure?  That’s how you’ll die.

Many people who are geniuses in the reality of time, turn out to be nothing.  Let’s remember that Vincent van Gogh sold very few paintings in his lifetime.  That was a person who didn’t give a damn what other people thought but was declared insane.  And so if you’re declared insane?

My goal is for someone to pay $100 million dollars for one of my paintings a hundred years after I’m dead.  Now, will somebody please take off this straightjacket so I can get back to work? 

Matt