Saturday, July 30, 2022

Black and White show

These three drawings have been accepted to Black & White, a juried exhibition hosted by Workshop 13 in Ware, MA.

ArtWorks Gallery
69 Main Street
Ware, MA.

In Person Exhibition from August 6th to 28th
Saturdays/Sundays 1 to 5 pm

Opening Reception Saturday August 3 3:00-5:00


Online Exhibition available Starting August 9th. Visit www.workshop13.org/

Where Ignorant Armies Clash by Night
This is a larger version of a sketch I did shortly after January 6, 2021. This image, from the last line of "Dover Beach", a poem by Matthew Arnold, has stuck with me ever since I was a child and my father quoted it as we drove by the oil refineries on the New Jersey Turnpike.


River Valley 
An imaginary person in an imaginary scene; make of it what you will. Perhaps she represents remembered love and peace, far from the battle.

Pencil drawing of young woman with short dark hair looking back over her shoulder. Behind and below is a river valley with a small city, bridge over river, and distant hills.

Heath Street Stop 
I used to live on the same MBTA line as the Boston VA Hospital, where veterans would travel by streetcar to get health care. Long after the battles are over and forgotten, the people that fought them still need help and support. A sacred obligation being flouted today by the politics of spite.


Pencil drawing of elderly bearded man with white cane being helped off of an old fashioned Boston trolley car.






Photo by Matthew MattExhibition announcement: BLACK & WHITE OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, AUGUST 6TH, 3-5 PM SHOW DATES: AUGUST 6TH- 28TH, SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS 5 PM ARTWORKS GALLERY 69 MAIN ST, WARE, MA

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Hat wave

 Disability Pride Month and the anniversary of the ADA reminded me of a project I did way back in the late Eighties for the Haymarket People's Fund in Boston. The assignment was a poster for a hat-themed event, and although the design document didn't say anything about including people with disabilities, I put in a guy in a wheelchair smiling and waving his hat in the air. This in turn sparked the idea of a variation on the familiar International Access Symbol with an exuberant hat waving figure, which I added at the bottom. At that time, the association of disability with positivity, joy, or fun was not a big part of the mainstream discourse, but it must have been bubbling up in the activist community in the runup to the passing of the ADA in 1990. After the poster came out, other advocacy groups latched onto my symbol design and used it for their communications.

Pen and ink, typography

Poster invitation to hat party, showing people dancing and waving hats in the air.

(Drawing of people dancing and waving hats in the air.)
Hats Off!
to Haymarket People's Fund
A hat please wear - or make one there!
Come Party -
and bring friends
May 14
Villa Victoria
85 West Newton
Boston's South End
8:00 - 1:00 am
8:00-9:00 snacks, hat making, photos with you and your hat
9:00 A TRIBUTE TO RENAE and her eight years at Haymarket
9:30-1:00 MUCH DANCING: SOUL, MOTOWN,LATIN,ROCK
Sliding scale $5-$25
For more info: (617) 426-1909


Van Horn Park Backstop

I never seem to tire of sketching this backstop. The geometry and perspective are challenging and the play of light on the chain link is intriguing.

This is also a first time trying a new pigment, nickel azo yellow, py150. I've been searching for the ideal yellow for my tiny watercolor box, and am trying this one because it is truly transparent, unlike most of the others. I was always a bit freaked out by this pigment because out of the tube it looks like a particularly unappetizing dull greenish brown. But when you add water and mix it with other colors, it becomes a strong vibrant yellow, good for making natural greens.

Watercolor 4" x 6"

Watercolor sketch of athletic backstop, with dark trees in background.



Monday, July 25, 2022

Apple trees on Mt Pollux

I started this one back in April 2019 and wasn't too thrilled with it at the time. I put it up on the studio wall along with its large family of unfinished siblings and just recently returned to it. I'm much happier with it now - I think I needed to acquire the vocabulary to express the way the scene felt to me.

Oil on linen panel 10" x 12" 

Oil painting of bare apple trees  against a background of woods and hazily visible mountain. Branches in foreground are lighter colored, presumably dead and covered with lichen or fungus.