A reader asks whether Matt has ever done a show or a peace project in Southeast Asia.

Matt responds:

I have not been in Southeast Asia yet.  My work is shown in Asia but I have not been there personally.

I find I have to ration where I go, because my ultimate task is to explore, as much as I possibly can, the mysteries of making art, and not only talking about being an artist but also actually being the artist:  doing the work, not parading around, showing people I am an artist and all the folderal that goes with it. To me, the task of being an artist is to manipulate your materials in order to transform your soul, your observation, opinions, loves, hates, and everything it is to be a human being; and to turn it into some sort of plane that—through the color, form, direction, controlled and uncontrolled movement of materials—makes some sense to me while I’m doing it; and hopefully to agitate and challenge other people to think about what I’m trying to say and do, and through their own filters delve into hidden places within their beings.

As I’ve said often, the challenge of the book, A View from the Center of the Universe, is:  Is it all hidden within us? In my personal case as an artist, I don’t want to be Picasso or Rembrandt or Andy Warhol; I want to be Matt Lamb.  So who is Matt Lamb, what am I doing, and am I becoming the best that Matt Lamb can be while he’s walking this earth?

I encourage every artist to find “self” in their work.  Because truly that is the great gift that they will leave this world when they’re lying underneath it.  So many of us try to be somebody else when should really try to be ourselves.  I have thought recently that my tombstone might be best inscribed:  “Who is Matt Lamb?  He knows now; he didn’t know then—but he tried.” 

Matt