We recently connected with Matt Scott and have shared our conversation below.
Matt, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I am primarily self-taught within my field, luckily I was around at the beginning of social media and YouTube, so I had access to a lot of resources to learn this craft. I was (and still am) able to reach out to other artists in the field who are much more skilled than I am and pick their brains and get help from them. I also did a lot of trial and error. Have an idea, try it, have it fail, then try again. That is one of the most important processes in learning.
I would say knowing what I know now, I would have taken more risks with my art and tried things sooner. I spent a lot of time wondering the “what ifs” and I feel that stalled me. I was so worried about things that might stall me, that I did not realize I was actively stalling myself.
I think my resourcefulness was the most essential. Working in the haunt industry, we usually have pretty tight budget constraints and have to get creative on how to achieve certain effects. This forced me (with the help of my brother pushing me) to think outside the box to find materials I could work with that were affordable to attain that is what lead me to the burlap masks.
The biggest obstacle I have had to overcome for learning, and still struggle with is self-doubt. I worry sometimes that if I have to ask someone how to do something I feel I should already know how to do it will diminish my artistic ability, which when I say it out loud is absurd! We have to always be open to learning, and sometimes that means asking others to help us learn. Reach out to the artists that inspire you or who are doing something you think is cool and ask them how they did it, 90% of the time they will be more than happy to discuss it with you. Even if they do not give you the whole answer, some artists like to hold on to key elements for one reason or another) they will at least provide a jumping off point.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I got started in the haunted attraction industry in 2006 when I emailed a local haunted house asking if they needed a makeup artist. I was a theatre student at East Tennessee State University at the time. The haunt owner emailed me back almost immediately and asked if I wanted to meet for lunch that day at the time of my next class. So, I did what any responsible 18-year-old college student would do, I skipped my next class and went and met with a guy who would become my mentor and one of my biggest supporters through this journey, a man by the name of Tim Harkleroad. I worked with his haunted house, Krone House, that season, and then the following season he wasn’t going to open, so I got the bright idea to audition for Ripley’s Haunted Adventure in Gatlinburg, TN. I then worked for Ripley’s for 3 seasons just doing their Fright Nights shows. I would work my job in my hometown, Johnson City, TN on Thursday night, get up Friday morning and drive the almost 2-hour drive to Gatlinburg, check into the cheapest hotel I could find, then work Friday night, Saturday Night, and Sunday, then drive back home Sunday night. I did this for 3 years before I decided to move to Gatlinburg to work full-time at Ripley’s. I did that, and after a month, I got really homesick and moved back to Johnson City, but that didn’t last long either. I was back at Ripley’s before that fall and stayed that time for an additional 3 years, working 40 hours a week (officially on the clock, more than that off the clock because I couldn’t get enough of it) in a haunted house,
After those 3 years, I felt I had learned all I could learn there and had gone as high up as I could go with the company without transitioning into a role outside of the haunted house. It was at this time my brother, who was already in the Nashville area with his guitar company already being successful, convinced me to move to Nashville to afford myself more opportunities to grow in my field. This was the best decision I could have made., but it was not easy. I struggled for a while after I moved to Nashville. I worked in restaurants and grocery stores and was regretting my move at times, but had to keep my focus. I eventually landed a job working for Animax Designs, a Nashville-based Puppet and Animatronics company, this was it! I was working with people that had resumes that read like my DVD collection! People who had worked on movies like Jurassic Park and Terminator. I worked in the mold shop and tried to learn as much as I could from everyone. I worked there for 6 years, the last 3 and a half years or so as a purchaser, which I was initially against, but it was actually a very good move for me. It allowed me the ability to build relationships with materials vendors that I was using outside of Animax and let me see pricing trends and learn materials that I more than likely would not have had the opportunity to learn before.
All of my past experiences have led me to where I am today and have helped me build my skill set to help clients not only with my masks that have been designed with experience on both ends of wearing a mask to make sure they are comfortable and durable but also with offering training and workshops to haunted attractions to help share my knowledge and help to grow those shows into something more.
I also offer prop repair services for themed entertainment attractions so that you can prolong your investment, this includes cosmetic animatronic repairs, as well as mask repairs both latex and silicone.
Anyone who knows me knows I am a nerd about Halloween and haunted attractions and just like to talk about them, build them, and design them and come up with ideas for them. Haunted attractions are what get me excited! I love to see an idea in my head and then see it come to life.
: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My goal from day one of my journey has always been to be respected in my field as an artist who is knowledgeable and easy to work with. I want to be a resource to those who are looking for answers and someone they feel is approachable enough to ask questions.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
I think the best thing society can do to support artists is to do just that, support them. Buy their work, and if you can’t, or maybe they aren’t your particular cup of tea, tell someone else about them.
Our society still has a bit of a stigma that art isn’t real work, but it is. That being said, if you expect to paint a portrait and people will just bust down your door to buy it, you are mistaken. Being a successful artist means you also have to be a successful business person, a successful marketer, and a successful advocate for your art or hire people to fill those roles.
The art business is exactly that, it is a business. You have to understand how business works and you also have to understand that the art business is an ego-driven business and you have to keep a level of humility while also being confident, which is difficult, but not impossible.
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