We recently connected with Tom Matousek and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tom, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I think I’ve always known that this is what I wanted to pursue. At a young age my father asked what I wanted to be when I grew up? I said “An artist”. He said “You can’t be an artist, it’s too competitive and you’ll never make it. Be an engineer”. So with that I really had a hard time determining what I should do and I wandered for quite some time and found it hard to focus on what to commit to professionally. I was, and I still am a really big snowboard enthusiast and moved to Colorado in the early 90’s. I worked in that industry for a while and I was pretty passionate about it. I met my wife Kris there and our jobs brought us to the East San Francisco Bay Area. My position with a large sporting goods retailer as their snowboard coordinator was phased out and I continued to work retail. After painting murals for our daughter in the late 90’s I started a mural business as a side job. I have a good friend that was working on his doctorate of divinity and he did his thesis on art as a form of worship and he asked me to do a painting for a particular sermon. Not knowing what to create, I painted an abstract interpretation of one of his poems using geometric shapes. I immediately wondered if I could create a recognizable face in this new style and although it was crude, it worked well enough for me to believe I was onto something. It was then that I decided to commit to my art and commitment meant making no excuses. I had to look at myself in the mirror at the end of every day and ask “Did you do everything you can today or are you bullshitting yourself”? I was 44. I’m now 59.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I think perhaps what I am most proud of was overcoming myself and my own obstacles. I think we all have dreams and say to ourselves “someday”. Dreaming is so easy. Commitment and working to fulfill those dreams is the hard part and where many of us give up. I sort of had an epiphany of being on my deathbed, staring at the ceiling thinking, “Whelp, that’s that. The kids are grown and the bills are almost paid. You had an entire lifetime to achieve something special and you didn’t even try.” It’s not the way I want to exit this lifetime. So I recognized that God gave me a gift and it would be best if I tried my best to use it. I was still working my day job and needed to find time to paint. So I started getting up at 4 in the morning everyday to paint. I didn’t want to but it was that important to me and those hours became a habit and very spiritual for me. I was able to create a body of work and posted on social media. Through that my work was seen by the DDR corporation (Marshall’s, Kohls, TJMaxx etc.). They featured me at Art Basel in Miami and sent me around the country to create community art projects based on my style. Through one of those events, my art was introduced to the CEO of Disney Fine Art, the officially licensed publisher of Disney fine art. Subsequently I was signed as a licensed Disney artist in 2016. As a Disney artist, I am most proud to have been commissioned by Club 33 to create their 55th Anniversary piece. It was the honor of a lifetime.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

My friend Elbert has said that prosperity is a lot like Baskin Robbins Ice Cream. It comes in many flavors. So what is the flavor of prosperity that you choose? Is it money? If so you may be stuck working hours you don’t like, doing something that really isn’t what you were designed for and answering to a boss that drives you crazy.. My favorite flavor is quality of life. We have a very small house and old vehicles but that doesn’t matter to us. We live near the American River and the Sierra Nevadas. We love the outdoors. I wake up in the morning and don’t have to drive anywhere, I work out of the house. I make coffee and walk the dog. Help my wife to get her day going and then paint. I can snowboard in the morning or golf and still get in a full day of painting. I love to cook so I make dinner.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I think if anything it’s trying to be what I was designed for and to positively affect others that I engage with. Obviously I want to make as much money as I can but there is a lot more to this journey than I originally imagined. I’m so fortunate to be experiencing some pretty amazing things in the second half of my life and as I share the story with people along the way, I’m seeing that it is giving some encouragement to a few that maybe feel like they are stuck.

Contact Info:

• Website: Tommatousek.com
• Instagram: @ matousekart
• Facebook: The art of Tom Matousek