How long have you been doing art? Have you always done it your whole life?

As a kid, I was totally into drawing. I had my dad’s briefcase and I’d go down the street door-to-door and sell my little drawings for a nickel. I always did like creating art, but I never did it in school. In fact, I never took a formal art class until I applied to MIAD (Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design).

My grandfather was a sign painter in Kenosha and my uncle is a graphic designer, so it was always in the family. My mom’s an artist too, so I always loved doing art, but it wasn’t my original career path.

I actually went into Elementary Education at the University of Iowa first. I was studying Special Ed and Elementary Ed. When I was less than a year away from graduating I decided I really like teaching but it wasn’t what I want to wake up and do every morning. So I left Iowa with just 12 credits left to graduate and came to Milwaukee, applied to MIAD and started all over again.

Oh, that’s not bad at all!

No, no, it’s perfect! I thought I was letting go of all the teaching and it’s amazing how much that’s come back into my life because I am a mentor at Islands of Brilliance and teach at MIAD.

I want to hear all about “Big, Giant Hugs” though because you said you started signing all of your messages “Big, Giant Hugs” and I’m interested where that came from.

My nieces and nephews called me the BFG, the Big, Friendly Giant, and so that just always stuck. Then many years ago I just started signing my posts “Big, Giant Hugs.” It was a play on giving giant hugs from a giant and they’re big hugs too.

I’ve struggled with mental health for all of my life — clinical depression and anxiety. I’ve had to learn how to live and strive with that…embracing it versus fighting it.

I’ve embraced this mindset of always trying to put positivity out into the world. Always assume best intent, always give that person the benefit of the doubt and try to live life as fully and as positively as possible.

So when this project came about I thought, what a cool opportunity to put that message out in the city. It’s just one more small and simple way to give people joy. I want to make people happy when they see it. 

It’s funny I actually wrote a blog post on my site about the piece because ironically — as an out, gay, married man — I never thought about Pride when I was creating that piece. It was just simply about spreading joy.

I didn’t know you were gay either, I assumed you were straight and then after you told me and we were releasing it at Pride I felt bad because I didn’t want you to feel that we were putting you in a box.

So it’s funny, when you put art out in the world, you’re kinda writing this contract that I’m releasing anything about it. I never thought this has to do with Gay Pride. It was just a play on the joy of the ’80s, you know…Rainbow Brite and Carebears. I just wanted to make this big thing that makes people happy. But I no longer owned the meaning behind it, that was given over to each person who sees it.

I’m such an advocate for the gay community — the LGBTQ community. as an ally it’s weird because you can support but you’re not actually in the community so it’s actually hard to talk about it sometimes. I want to be able to talk about it though, because all my closest friends around me identify and I’ve built a family around me. I just want to be able to talk about it.

We all bring our experiences to the table, whether you’re gay, straight, or an ally. I think it’s all our life experiences we each bring together. The more we do that, the fewer differences we find.

I think that’s been the hard part, as time goes on, it feels like things are becoming more boxed up. It’s like things are really opening up but as things open up there seem to be more boxes.

I’m like, oh man, I don’t want to be closed off from people — I don’t want to feel awkward talking to people — like your identity is this, so now I have to talk to you in this way.

I get social anxiety just talking to people sometimes. I don’t know how to not offend you anymore, so I’m just not going to say anything.

I always say, I’m just going to talk and then I’ll learn from you if I offended you. I can apologize, then I’ll learn, and I can do better next time. I do think we’re in a time of such political correctness where it feels like everything has to be perfectly said. And you know what? That’s not how we live! That’s not who we are!

I’m just a big believer in the pendulum theory. For 21 years I was living in the closet and so my pendulum was waaayyy up over here and when I came out it swung waaayyy to the other side and I was ouuuuttt!

But eventually, that pendulum slows down and settles in the middle and I’m just me. Being gay becomes a part of my identity, but a small part of my identity. There’s so much more.

I think the same happens in society. While we get more rights and people are more open to talking about it, that pendulum swings to the other side where everything needs to be perfect. Eventually, hopefully, it comes to that middle point where now we’re just people and we can all talk to each other.

I think right now, especially in the LGBTQ community we keep adding letters…Q…A…and all these things…I think it does become more difficult, and it does become — even within our community — more segmented, more segregated because we have so many identifiers.

For a long time, the “G” was a really big part of my identity, it was how I identified. But like I said, yeah, I’m Matt…and I’m gay…but before I’m gay: I’m an artist, I’m a family member, I’m a creative person, I’m a compassionate community member. All of that is who I am inside of me, and then there’s this little corner piece that’s like oh, and by the way, I have a husband and I like guys instead of girls.

I think eventually as things come to the middle, hopefully, we can have more open conversations. It’s an amazing part of society right now, there are almost as many straight people at Pridefest as there are gay people! I worked for 8 years in a gay bar and I loved that community, it was a safe place for us. But I also think it’s awesome that gay bars are becoming less and less necessary, like we can just go to almost any bar and be ourselves.

It’s an interesting time that we’re in, but yeah, I think the less we can worry about all the labels and that crap, then the more we can just be human beings and community members.

Have you ever seen Broad City?

We watched the first episode and we thought maybe it wasn’t our kind of show. But we really need to watch more episodes and actually give it a shot.

Well, one character says, “whatever in the future everyone’s going to be queer and brown anyways.” and I was like, I love that! Because it’s true!

eventually, it feels like everything will become completely homogenized and that’s where harmony will just exist because the differences won’t matter anymore. we’ll just be able to experience the energy of a person. Whatever the person is bringing to the table, you can just be with that person.

Yes, but…there are such beautiful aspects to holding onto what makes us so unique and different too! Not just having pride in your sexuality, but your own heritage…and learning about and celebrating other cultures. So as it becomes more homogenized, hold onto those things that make us unique and different…then we can eventually get to that point where we start embracing the differences!

Everyone is so afraid of our differences but if we start talking and sharing stories — that’s why I’m so open about my mental health and all those things — the more we share the things we’re scared to talk about, the less scary they become. The more we realize we’re not alone.

I feel we’re really all so much more alike than we are different.

And so just like I put my being gay in a little corner pocket of my identity…I think all those things that we think are differences…if we put those things in with all the things that make us united and similar…it would only be a little corner pocket where we put our differences.

But differences are what we seem to focus on and by focusing on those differences, that’s how we keep things being scary and unknown.

It’s like holy crap, there’s this world of stuff that makes us all the same if we just want to look for them!

I think of it as though the light has been broken and everything is coming out. but in the way it’s coming out everything is being boxed up. but then that only happens for so long because that’s just the first step.

Yeah, because now we have to figure out what to do with it!

Yeah, because now you have a voice, and communities are finally having a voice! we never had this voice before and so now all the anger that you’ve suppressed over all this time comes out. it becomes all these boxes, but then like you said, the pendulum swings and everything opens up again and it’s all fine.

As you’re saying that I have this mental picture…

We had to put everything in boxes because we’re moving into a new house. So, you pack up your old house and now we’re moving in. We’re in this new house and we have to figure out where to put all the stuff that we put into those boxes, everything that’s now coming out of the boxes.

It’s true though, because There are always these huge transitions in life and you come out a completely different person.

like for me I’ve been through a lot of huge transitions in my life and I feel like I’m never the same person on the other side. I don’t feel like I’m the same person but internally I experience things the same way.

It’s really easy, it seems relentless, it’s like okay, when is that…

Yeah, when does it stabilize?

Yeah, but in between all those moments have been beautiful, positive life-changing things as well. It’s finding that balance and being able to continue seeing those beautiful things.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the negative things that are happening in your life, but if you can just focus on the positive…all of a sudden things become more sustainable and okay.

Just like I was saying there are more similarities than differences between people and how we focus on those differences, you can usually find more positive things than negative, even when we’re at our lowest.

It is unreal — in the darkest, lowest times — you can still find something to be grateful for…and those things are really powerful.

That bus shelter that I designed is intended as the most simple thing — to give someone a little joy in their day. I mean, when we went to see it I couldn’t believe how vibrant it was, especially when the sun hits it from behind. It’s unbelievable! It’s awesome. Location and timing brought on a whole other meaning to it — but at its core, the most simple thing was, I want to make someone smile.

That’s what my friend Bob said. he said, “Libby, I saw that the piece in Walker’s Point lights up. you have to choose pieces that are vibrant like that because when the sun hits them from behind it creates this whole other experience…it looks like the shelter itself is glowing.”

That’s what was fun when we went down and saw it. People were sitting in front of the Big, Giant Hugs design and they had color on their faces! It literally was lighting them up! It was really beautiful.

And that gives this whole other realm to your piece then, that it’s wrapping them in this hug of color, this warm, colorful hug.

It’s funny, you asked, “Have you always been an artist?” I’ve always thought of myself as a designer. But recently, in the last couple of years, I’ve been embracing the idea of creating art over just design. So, I’ve been playing around with different explorations of what it means to not always be designing something — rather creating things just as they are.

Professionally, I’m always trying to communicate…there are always guidelines around what are I’m trying to communicate through any given piece…but I’m finding to create for creation’s sake is also pretty cool and freeing.

I think that’s the rawest form of art. like, that’s what it’s supposed to be, to just create and not judge it.

for me, in my own art, I’m always critiquing it. I can get lost in it and create but then I hear my friends, like, “oh what are you doing getting into art? Isn’t that for people that are actually good at it?” And it’s like, how would I get good at it if I didn’t try?

That’s why that little boy that would go with his dad’s briefcase and sell drawings for five cents…that’s why he stopped being an “artist”.

I think it was Brené Brown, she talks about how kids freely create. As a child, you will just draw and do whatever you do, until that first moment that somebody gives you a critique and somebody tells you that it’s good or not…but what about this, or that…this shouldn’t look like that. All of a sudden, you start questioning yourself and you begin that whole thing of self-doubt and personal judgment. That moment when you start to judge your own work is a huge hurdle to get over.

The piece I submitted for this project is super simple and minimal. I questioned if it is going to be enough? Is it art? Is it design? Does it matter? It’s all of those things. That’s why up until the last minute of submitting it, I questioned it. Finally I thought, you know what? I’m just going to submit it, who cares? I mean, I made it…why not put it out there?

I had a lot of self-doubt around it. That’s why when I got your email saying you loved it and it was selected, that to me was a huge change in how I see myself and the work I’m doing as an artist/designer/creator.

It’s an interesting thing in any creative endeavor. I think in the profession of design you learn that you have to be able to critique work and you have to be able to receive criticism from others and be able to not take it personally. But when it is something that’s more in that line with art, then all of a sudden it does become personal because it comes from a personal place.

I would think most creatives struggle with this because it’s such a subjective thing, but when you turn that off and create just to create it…suddenly it becomes such a beautiful thing.