A reader asks Matt whether he has always been interested in world peace, or whether this is only a development that has taken place since he became a painter.

Matt responds:

I have to say no, I haven’t always been interested in world peace.  I grew into it after leaving my business life, which was all-consuming.  When you deal with the deepest emotion of people who are coping with the death of someone they love, it can really and truly be all-consuming.  I didn’t know about Woodstock or get into the peace-activist movement at the time, so I can’t truthfully say that I was a person concerned with peace all my life.

It was more of a gradual awakening to the question:  What kind of a world are we leaving behind?  What have we left as our heritage?  How can I personally do something to better this planet?

I believe that my awareness came about because of the thousands of hours I spend by myself painting and talking to the spirits that I see around me.  Probably people will think that’s crazy.  Maybe I’m only talking to myself and should be institutionalized, but it just seemed to me after many conversations with myself about man’s inhumanity to man, I was really appalled by the actions of the human species and convinced that we have to contain oursleves, get ourselves under control, or risk the complete destruction of this earth.

I was watching a nature program on television about the little animals that run around, 10 inches high—chipmunks, prairie dogs—they attack each other, they attack the young of one tribe or another...  They’re doing what we do.  Is this the way we’re genetically marked?  The difference is that the animals do it out of instinct, and we should know better.  This is the kind of crazy thought that goes through my head while I’m in my studio, painting out my frustrations, thoughts, and dreams.

So while I can’t put on the hat of a lifelong activist, I will die as an activist, so better late than never.  Awhile ago I adopted the mantra “Peace tolerance understanding hope and love.”  That particular mantra came to me over a fairly long period of time.  It was a case of one thing leading to another to another to another, and everything finally leading to love. Love is a very complicated thing.  If we can’t love ourselves first, then we can’t love anybody else.  That comes to acceptance:  Accept that you’re a complete and utter idiot and asshole.  Now what?  Do you want to change that?  So change is important:  Hope.  I hope I can change.  And tolderance.  What it is?  It’s what people give you when you’re acting like a fool.  Understanding is saying, “I understand, but I don’t believe what you’re saying, because your belief system is different.”

When it finally comes down to it, to me the overall umbrella is love.  If you don’t have love, you don’t have anything.  That’s what the major religions are talking about:  loving one another, bringing love to the world.  That is the hidden message of the universe. How do we come to love?  It’s easy to love someone you have a close relationship with, but how do we love someone we have no hope of understanding, no knowledge of what they’re talking about, and are in complete disagreement with what they believe?  How can we love them?  How do we get there?  Do we have to get there?

I say yes, we do.  I probably came to that conclusion when I started thinking about how we’re destroying each other, now with the capability to use the ultimate weapon, and that there are people with backward thought who would use that weapon to destroy the whole world.  Now that we have gotten to that point, we better start thinking about how we can love each other.

Why would an undertaker/painter think about that?  Who knows, and who cares?  If we all thought about peace, then the destruction of the world wouldn’t be an issue.  So if we all do start thinking about it, then the whole world will change, there’s no doubt about it.  I use art to try to make it happen; somebody else can use carpentry, plumbing, selling newspapers, driving a taxi, whatever.  We all have to think about what we can do, and then do it.

Matt

A reader remarks that there is a strain of eclecticism that appears to go through Matt’s spiritual beliefs and asks Matt whether this is accurate.

Matt responds:

That's an interesting question.  My biographer, Richard Speer, has said that I’m a wanderer and I keep my bags packed, so I agree with that assessment.  I have great awe about who we are, where we came from, what we’re doing here, what our job is, and the question of whether there are other worlds.

I have come to my own conclusion that it would be presumptuous on our part to think we are the only things in this whole big universe that can make decisions, come to know ourselves, and come to be as good or evil as we are as a species.

The human being tends to want to have closure in many different aspects.  I believe that in some cases, the closure is religion.  It’s easy to put on the cloak and walk around, but once you leave the place of worship, are you waving to people as you pull out of the parking lot, or are you giving them the bird telling them to get the hell out of your way?

I happen to like the message of Jesus Christ:  Love one antoher as I have loved you.  A love-based God who thinks that we can be better than we are—that’s a real challenge.

Are there times I wonder about all this?  There are times when I wonder if I’m really here, or if this is all just some big dream.  In terms of my own personal philosophy, I have a deep faith in what I believe in, but I also believe that I’m not going to really and truly know anything until I’m dead and gone to the next level.  At that point I hope and pray that all things will be revealed.

When we talk about religions that believe in reincarnation, I just hope that I’m not sent back here to be a dung beetle or a plow horse or a dancing bear.  I hope this is my only trip through this crazy world of ours.  Sometimes I think this is the insane asylum of the universe, where we figure out who in the hell we are.  We have glimpses of God and eternity, we have all kinds of doctrines, and in many cases it’s so puzzling, it’ll probably drive us crazier than we already are if we really think about it.

Just existing sometimes is a task, but I have found that it helps immeasureably for me to ask for help and direction from my spirit guides, my faith, to give me joy.  I know this sounds crazy, but when my wife and I are on airplanes, she’ll look over at me, and I’ll be crying from laughing so much, from the stories I’m telling myself.  That’s a gift.  I hope that’s the way I die:  laughing at the absurdity of the world.

I don’t know if that answers your question.  I would probably say that most of the time I’m more confused than certain about almost everything.

One final note:  Lately it’s taken me less time to read the menu and make up my mind what I want.  Maybe if I take up fasting, I won’t have to read the menu at all. 

Matt

A reader seconds Matt’s positive comments about the late NBC newscaster Tim Russert and adds that Russert’s death should be a wakeup call to all of us to live well and love those around us.

Matt responds:

I absolutely believe that we never die as long as our good work, thoughts, and deeds are remembered by others.  So what we do really does count positively or negatively within whatever world we exist in.  Some people marginalize themselves and don’t think that they really mean much, but I don’t think there’s any person—or even, to get sort of goofy, any insect or mammal or other living creature—that doesn’t make some kind of impact.  I find anymore that I open the window to let the fly outside rather than swatting it.  I find a butterfly in my house and put a glass over it and take it outside and liberate it.

So when we talked about Tim Russert, we talked about a man who influenced those around him but also people he never had interactions with.  His words and innate philosophy permeated the scene and will continue to as long as any of us are around to remember. I think that goes for all of us.  At our funeral, I think it would be good if people would say, “He or she will be mightily missed,” instead of “Thank God the old bastard’s gone!”

So if that sort of thought process can drive us to a better world, so be it.

Matt

Hello bloggers.

Lots of times people will ask me which of my studios I like the best, and I always tell them, “Whichever I’m in right now.”  Sometimes I think about this when I’m in one part of the world getting ready to back to my home in a different part of the world.  Before long I’ll be back to Chicago, my hometown.

I think I was blessed for being born in Chicago, because it’s such an eclectic environment.  In reality, Chicago is hundreds of little towns all knitted together, all under the tapestry called “Chicago.”  Each neighborhood has their own restaurants, churches, and cultures.  We have a common communication system, telephones, we have railroad tracks and roads and streets, highways, busses, and undergrounds, which bring us all together and keep us all in one huge family.  The great thing about Chicago is that we identify ourselves as Chicagoans, but we’re also members of other constituencies.  If you’re Roman Catholic, you tell people which parrish you’re from, St. Sabina or the Beverly area or whatever.  In my day you knew the people from Sabina were working for the streetcars, the people in the Beverly area were most likely going to be the doctors and lawyers...

It really teaches you the strength of diversity.  As long as we can all keep marching along from generation to generation, all getting a little bit better, whatever that means, and all understanding each other, then we’re making each new generation more responsible than the last.

When you visit Chicago, I believe you’ll find it one of the most beautiful cities that you come across.  There’s a real interest in anything that blooms, the architecture, the public art, which I think is as good as any, the teeming shopping areas, the whole buzz of Chicago with its protected lakefront and its interesting neighborhoods.  It’s something to be savored.  So as you can see, I should be working for the Chamber of Commerce instead of directing funerals or making paintings.

Matt

A reader asks Matt whether it was hard growing up in a funeral home, surrounded by death and grief.

Matt responds:

In my first life, every day was taken up with the burying of the dead and the helping of bereaved famiies.  In such an atmosphere, it would be easy to think that all of life is dreaded and unfair. Therefore, for me personally to survive, I had to look beyond my everyday life, smell the roses, and sample the nectar of life.

I’ve come to the conclusion that life is a big smorgasbord.  There’s a lot of great things, and there’s a lot of stuff we hate.  Some of the food we must take while holding our nose.  Some of it tastes so bad, we might even have to puke.  But other dishes we savor and wish we only had a little bit more of that sweet, wonderful, exotic taste.

Life is made up of all of these dishes and more, so I tend to believe we can’t blame anything or anyone for our condition, especially God for putting us here.  The old copout, “I didn’t ask to be born,” is just that.  We’re here, we’re actors on the stage; we have to do our part.  We might as well enjoy it, because happiness actually resides between our two ears.  The mixture, the chaos of life and death and sickness and health and all the great mysteries of life, are part of the process.

So onward we go, and where we stop, nobody knows.

Matt 

Hello, bloggers.

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about while I’ve been in Ireland. When we say that we are afraid to do something or we’re not capable or worthy of doing something, it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.  I’m one of the fools.  I don’t mind rushing in.  I don’t think we should ever ration what we can or cannot do until we try.  And then, even if we feel we haven’t succeeded, the truth is, we really have succeeded.

I believe that in each one of us is the ability to try to do whatever we think we should do.  That doesn’t mean that by the measurements we have now, that we’re going to succeed or fail.  The only failure is not trying.  Let others like what you do or not like it.  I’m going to do it regardless of what other people think, because just the act of doing it is a complete and utter victory, as long as it’s a good act.  I’m not talking about burning down a church or poisoning the water supply.

There are many aspects of the world that tell us we’re not capable of doing things.  I think those are the philosophies of people who try to subjugate other people to their will.  The worst thing you can say to me is, “Lamb, you can’t do it.”  If you’re going to make sure I’m going to do it, tell me I can’t, and I will turn over every bit of my knowledge and power and meditation to show you wrong.  I think that’s one of the tools that’s used to manipulate us as human beings.  If we can say, “Well, am I going to be made a fool of?” I say, “By whom?  By fools?”  Then I can be the best fool in the crowd.  There are many centers of power who want us to sit in the corner sucking our thumb, thinking we can’t do anything.  My advice is, Do it anyway, and if they don’t like it, tell 'em they can stick it.

Matt

A reader asks Matt’s opinion on art competitions which require entry fees.

Matt responds:

When I was a struggling student I used every penny I had on booze.  It kept me happy and unafraid.  It took me awhile to figure out it wasn’t the ultimate answer. I really don’t know anything about entering these competitions.  I always am suspicious when I’m asked to give money to win a prize.  It’s probably better to buy a lottery ticket.

Who’s looking at your art?  Are these the great art critics of this country and other countries or just a bunch of scam artists who might be looking at art one day, automobiles the second day, and toadstools the third day?  When I read something about an artist, I always ask:  Who wrote this, their brother-in-law or somebody who looks at it with intelligence and perspective?  I liken it to going to a dentist or a brain surgeon.  They both operate on the head, but I wouldn’t want a dentist cracking open my skull.

So the authority, education, credentials, and background of a person looking at your art are important, but if your art is outside the mainstream, maybe you’re the only one who understands it right now—and there’s nothing wrong with that.  100 years from now, you would go down as a great discoverer, but today the people would say it’s just a pile of crap.  It might matter to someone who might buy a work of art based upon a third-party appraisal, but I believe the best critic of any artist is the artist themselves.  Can you look at a piece of art and say, Today I’ve used all my skills, introspection, and power, and this is the best I can possibly do today—but I’m going to keeep working so tomorrow or the next day I can do something better?

If that’s the case, but the art critics don’t like it, well, that’s just too damn bad.  I’m not going to lose any sleep over it, I’m just going to say, “I’ll show those bastards.  I’ll just keep doing and doing and doing and challenging myself to do better.”

Art is a personal exploration inside ourselves to come up with some form of manipulation of whatever product we’re using, to try to put into perspective the thoughts and ideas that we have.  If it’s only a yellow painting to go above a green couch, then it would become obvious to anyone over 6 years old that it’s a yellow painting to go over a green couch.  But if it’s about world peace or love or other things important to the human endeavor, then it becomes something of a mystery, and people are going to see completely different things than what you intended—so that you as an artist have challenged not only yourself, but the viewer.

That is one of the main purposes of the artist:  to give a gift with which you can challenge other people to think about what they’re doing on this planet, and why.

Thanks for the thought-provoking question,
Matt 

A reader writes that in order for the education system to improve, not only do bureaucrats and educators have to raise the bar, but students, too, need to shed the attitude of entitlement they seem increasingly to be bringing with them into school.

Matt responds:

Thank you for your insights into education and how people learn.  Your comments are very germane.

I believe that education is about possibilities.  I think we have to broaden our scope as to what those possibilities are.  If we get the Pollyanna attitude that anything is possible, that opens us up to all kinds of opportunities.  Possibly I could be a great surgeon, but because I would hate to put even a stickpin into my own hand, I don’t see how I could ever slice into somebody with a scalpel.  There are many other things that, even if I could do them, I wouldn’t, just because of my personal choices.

But I think that quite often we put ourselves and others into boxes, and we expect them to stay there, and ourselves to stay there, too.  A great education system would be able to tap into our human longing for fulfillment, and to take away the false impression that we have succeeded or failed. I don’t happen to think there is any such thing as failure.  The only failure is not trying.  If you don’t do something, it’s 100% sure that it’s not going to get done, at least not by you.  That kind of attitude keeps people in a caste system:  “This is who you are, don’t step outside of your box.”

I think that’s the strength of democracy, where just about anyone, given the right situation and a push or two, can do almost anything.  We’re not destined to be who the system thinks we are.  The question we have to ask ourselves is:  Are we losing that democracy within ourselves within this feeling of properness:  This is proper, this isn’t. There are certain things that I suppose we need to learn are not proper, so that we’re not farting in church or belching in a restaurant.  But you don’t learn about that in school; you should be taught it in your home.

Another question related to this is the caliber of our teachers and whether the best teachers are being valued enough by the system economically.  In the past, we had unions.  Now it just seems to be negotiations:  You don’t get what you’re worth; you get what you negotiate.  But the most important thing is feeling rich in what you do, even though you think people might be stealing from you, or you’re giving it away for nothing...  You know it has worth, because you know it was the best you could do on a particular day.  The real sadness would be if you took an idea from someone or decided you were only going to give somebody half of what you were capable of.  That would make you unworthy of yourself.  Possibly the person receiving your endeavor wouldn’t have the capacity to know whether you were giving your all or just begrudging them the crumbs from the table.

Regardless, we have to respect ourselves.  Every generation should try to build on the last generation.  Are we living up to those standards?  Are we trying to add to the luster of our inheritance?  Or are we neglecting and shortchanging our heritage by our selfishness or failure to live up to our own future? These are all questions that can be answered only by meditating within ourselves to find out what the hell we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

I think Lincoln’s observation that “you can’t fool all the people all the time” is so true.  We can’t fool ourselves all the time either, so we have to be very careful of what we do and why we do it, and then we have to know intrinsically that what we’re doing is right.  And if we don’t get paid well enought for it, well, that’s just tough shit; at least we’re doing what we love.

Matt 

How does that interact with the art world?  I think it depends on what we’re individually looking for in the art world.  I know for me, when I first started thinking about art, what I liked, what I didn’t understand, I thought there was a vast amount of what I categorized as “bullshit art.”  Then I started to think more about it and, in comparison with the reality of I hope, I realized I could come to an understanding of what this artist was trying to say.

So that instance of hope was a hope to challenge myself to cast off my prejudices about abstract art.  The older I get, the more acceptance I get, and the smaller is the container that holds what I used to call “bullshit art.”  In most cases anymore, I have to scrape the bottom of the barrrel to find it—not because anything else has changed, but because I have changed.  And the main reason I have changed is that I hoped I would be able to grow.  I thank God I wasn’t complacent in my prejudices, my lack of knowledge, and my seeing-but-not-understanding.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I think hope is, too.

Thanks for all your questions—and we’ll all keep hoping...

Matt

A reader writes in to thank Matt for the thought-provoking content of the Blog, and adds that this was the first time he had left a comment for a blog.

Matt responds:

Thanks for writing, thanks for expressing.  The first step in any journey is to get on the sidewalk, on the road, or on the river.  I’m honored that you have participated in our discussion.

Some blowhards like me never stop talking, and we probably make up for a lot of people who have some great thoughts but only share them privately with a small group of friends, instead of shouting through megaphones the way I do.  Rest assured, the smallest whisper can create as much change as the loudest thunder.

Thank you for coming to the blog, and for your presence in the peace movement,
Matt