We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matt Verges. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matt below.

Hi Matt, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?

I was hitchhiking across America from Missouri to California and back. I had some friends in a band out there in Santa Cruz, so the plan was for me to stay with them for a bit. They were about to put out their first record on a bigger label, and their cover artist dropped out at the last minute. I volunteered, and drew the album cover in one afternoon while hanging out with my buddies in the pirate radio station they ran out of their basement. It felt great. I had done work for bands before, but it was always a very small, DIY thing. This was actually going to be out there in the world, in hundreds of people’s record collections! I was so excited to have my work out there, associated with and enhancing the music. From there it was on to more and more work for bands, album covers, tee shirts, and gigposters.

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 specialize in nature art with a surrealist vibe to it. I tend to go dark at times, with skulls and other oddities, but I try to maintain a sense of playfulness or beauty. My work often outwardly focuses on death, but I strive for it to be just as much a celebration of life as well. Finding the light in the dark.

I’m currently working on a series of ink drawings using animal skulls as the actual canvas. The focus is the relationship between various species, and the greater cycles of life and death we are all subject to.

I was always interested in art as a child, drawing animals, monsters, and superheroes. I grew up in a small river town in Missouri, about an hour south of St. Louis. I lived across the street from a park with a pretty substantial wild area towards the back. This afforded me plenty of time to explore nature, plants, animals, and a small creek to play in. My disdain for authority and traditional schooling resulted in me having plenty of time to practice my drawing while not listening to my teachers.
As I grew older, my interests bounced around from comic books, tattoos, skateboarding, punk, and metal bands. After my time in high school, I didn’t want to jump right into college, so I spent some time traveling, and just living that young, poor, and punk lifestyle. I tried my hand at tattooing, indie comics, and screenprinting. Eventually, all that led me to digital art, and I found a place designing tee shirts and album covers for punk and metal bands, something I still do today.

In 2009, I moved to Denver to take over an old union print shop. I was busy as a small business owner, but I learned a lot about print and design and was afforded the freedom to continue working on my own art. Eventually, things fell through with the print shop due to personal differences, and changes in the printing business.

Disillusioned, I got a job doing creative art in a local t-shirt shop, mostly drawing fish and wildlife for hunting and fishing shirts. It was a typical 9 to 5 in an office building with no windows, far from the nature I grew up in. I got married to a wonderful woman who is also very creative, and she supported me as I started participating in gallery shows around Denver. Eventually, my artwork was taking off, and I was able to quit my job and do art full time. We also had our first child by this point, and life was just easier and more affordable to stay home with her during the day.

Currently, I show my art in galleries and trade shows all around the country, while continuing to do freelance artwork for bands, magazines, indie films, and clothing companies on the side. I stay home with my two daughters and do my best to get them doing creative work alongside me. I’ve resigned into my new title as Old Punk Art Dad, and have found that a minivan works just as well to haul art around as it does to haul kids.

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

I love being able to work for myself, and focus on my own artistic vision. I have control over my schedule, and the work I produce. I love building the world that my work resides in, and I love trying out new merch ideas and applications.

Have you ever had to pivot?

A lot of my early work was centered around a clothing label I created to support my artwork. I was basically selling my artwork on t-shirts. I got my own screenprinting press, all sorts of inks and supplies and taught myself how to screenprint out of a spare bedroom. It was so hard! The dryers used to set the ink were hot, and the fumes were noxious. The uncured ink got everywhere, and cleaning screens in the bathtub was a chemical disaster. I was spending so much time printing and burning and cleaning and maintaining all this equipment that I didn’t have time to create new work. And the shirts I was producing were not up to my own standards of quality. I sold all of my printing equipment, and started working with a local printer instead. I finally had time to create new work, and my living space wasn’t a disaster area. It was one of the best decisions I could have made, even with the extra expenditure. I learned to focus on what I do best, and leave the rest up to the professionals.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mattverges.com
• Instagram: @mattverges