We were lucky to catch up with MATTHEW ROSE recently and have shared our conversation below.
MATTHEW, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
Yes, as an artist I’m free to create and to modify, mid course, my aesthetic choices. I have had regular, office jobs. I have worked closely with people (in offices and studios), but working at my own pace and connecting with creatives across the planet at their own pace, makes my life a daily lesson in cooperation and forces me to better understand what we are doing here on Earth. A bit dramatic, I know, but still I make art and do something every day – and that thing I make or produce or perform is essentially me and my bond with others. It’s a joy to wake up and do something different every day.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I have always drawn and painted and written and played music. Since forever.
My most recent big exhibition took place at the Karuizawa New Art Museum in Japan. It was quite massive. It was called Weekend Plans. Some 60 collage works on paper and canvas, along with a range of altered objects. The exhibition was a critical success and it many many works were sold to Japanese collectors.
I also exhibited in an adjacent gallery a project I curated in 2009, A Book About Death. That exhibition opened in 2019 and because of the pandemic, my show lasted three years! Interested in the project? Here’s a film we made about the New York installation from 2009: http://abookaboutdeath.blogspot.com/2009/11/book-about-death-video.html
As an artist my main activity is collage. With a pair of scissors, an old book (paper) and glue and some support – paper, canvas, wood – I’m quite at home reporting on the world, cutting and pasting. Collage is a fast way to take my thoughts and translate them through my fingers to a page and detail the world as I see it.
My other activity as a writer and editor is the magazine I began publishing in June 2021. Trouble. An art and literary quarterly. It is free (PDF download) though some folks do purchase a hard copy via BLURB. It’s a labor of love and allows me to collaborate with artists around the world. I invite anyone reading this to contact me with ideas – artists, writers, performers. But first please see the magazine. It is free. Click on the cover to download: http://concretewheels.com/trouble/trouble.htm
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Lesson learned and constantly learning. It’s very hard to create something meaningful. It often seems useless and more often there’s little or no reward. Artists typically experience a cauldron of emotions, many of them dark and depressing. I have to unlearn this behavior every day. To peel away the layers of darkness and find some semblance of light and humor and my better self, my better person – even if my subjects are dark.
Where I learned these dark lessons that I have to “unlearn” is probably something my shrink could write about.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Yes! Getting fired! Best thing that ever happened to me. I was working with a group of egomaniacs who had zero work ethic and started the day when they finished a three hour lunch. They were not nice people (this was a business) and had no understanding of what I could really bring them – though I tried. So they fired me, gave me a check for $900 and it was the best day of my life. It is the day I began to be who I was meant to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://concretewheels.com/trouble/trouble.htm
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maybemistahcoughdrop/
Image Credits
First image: Fiddle Haus Pastoral. Collage on canvas, 2022. Second Image: Trouble : Climate Change Issue, December 2021.