Matthew is well know for his often funny, always kind rants on the TXP forum. He is married to Amy. Amy blogs entertainingly about the MiniSmith family on her site minismith.com which Matthew beautifully designed for her. Here is a more personal interview with Matthew, a guy in love with his family and design work. Matthew´s portfolio site can be found on artiswork.org.
Q. Hi Matthew, nice having you here with TXP Mag. Can you tell us a bit about you?
M: I was born in Colorado, August, 19 1978. Now my wife Amy, our son Brighton and i are living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in a neighborhood called Mt. Airy. I have a BA in Fine Arts (7 year degree) from Colorado State U. Btw. I went to school for roughly two years in Southern England (University of Portsmouth, School of Art and Design), where I learned to make art weirder, nerdier, harder to understand (more elitist) – which has been problematic. I graduated two years ago. Some time ago i turned to webdev because it was a great way to continue being creative without the cost of buying supplies for making “art” and something that could be done while being mobile, which became important when Brighton burst onto the scene.
Q. What are your main interests?
M: Mac, family, what else? Is there anything else? Well, I’m a pretty crappy christian, but that guy Jesus and I hang out a lot, he tends to call me to go get a beer, more than I call him. I’m really interested in semiotics, in perception, in what the mind/heart does when we limit the senses. A lot of the work I have done as a “fine” artist deals with that. I’m pretty nerdy with my passions. I was once a hunter, and still would be if it was easy to hunt hear in Philadelphia like it was in Colorado. Don’t worry, I ate all that I shot. Elk, deer, antelope, rabbit. I grew up doing that. We never really ate beef, I just ate wild meat.
Q. Leos are supposed to be very into family, like to lead and tend to be lazy. Fits?
M: I don’t usually put much stock into astrology, except for maybe what the Onion Newspaper says about me:
Leo JULY 23 – AUGUST 22 Like the bonsai tree, you require special attention and care. Also like the bonsai tree, you are far, almost freakishly, below normal size.
I’m into family, but I’m more into time alone. I’m a closet introvert. I like relating, but I secretly long for more time to myself to process thoughts, ideas, emotions, and big five guys burgers.
Q. Can you elaborate a bit on ‘semiotics’ and ‘perception’ What exactly do you mean?
M: Well Semiotics in its most basic form is the study of sign systems. Often its tied to literary fields but it includes visual, auditory, and other sensory models as well. Because of the way humans receive information, past the age of infancy, we process language in all its forms (visual, auditory, written, etc.) and then we associate and construct meaning. Think about the last book you read and then went to see the movie, or discussed with a friend. Did you ever feel like you had different perceptions about what the character looked like for instance? Yet you and the producer of the movie read the same book. Another example is the color grey. Apparently what Americans think of grey is a perfect mix of black and white, with no other color. Does this hold up for Germans? I’ve been told that ‘grau’ has a little bit of brown in it? Language can be subjective. A chair can be imbued with meaning dependent on our personal or cultural history – but its still just a chair. This points to the fact that as “receivers” of information (signs) we play an authorial role in “reassigning” those signs with culturally (personal or corporate) meaning, to the point that they become symbols. A good example of a work I did around this kind of thing is this video called Listen Again. Watch it and see what I mean about images being tied, and associated with other forms of signs,in this case, sounds.
Q. You are happily married and father of a son, Brighton. Do you still enjoy reading books to him :)
M: He’s really a little young for books, but I enjoy him immensely. We’ve had a hard time getting him to sleep well, and that’s been hard for us, but its been teaching us to let go of expectations and just love the little dude for where he is, and for where he’s at. Its been good for our marriage. Brighton has been a real tool in showing Amy and I areas of weakness and places we need help. We both tend to be really independent, and Brighton is teaching us to ask friends and neighbors for help in things we would have been uncomfortable to do before. He’s single handedly creating community.
Q. Anymore kids planned?
M: We get kind of flighty and quiet when we start talking about having more kids, because we know it will mean more sacrifice of our lives to theirs, but as we fall more in love with little B, we know its a logical direction to go. We’ve talked about 2 or 3 more? Little arrows in my quiver.
Q. Let´s face the dark side of Matthew Smith :). What does your wife Amy complain most about you? Socks under the bed…??
M: Oh great! I thought I already was. This is a great question. I’m actually going to ask my wife to answer this one…
Amy: Hmm, this is always a dangerous question for the counterpart toanswer. So the “dark side of Matthew Smith”? It tends to include leaving popped beer bottle lids on the counter, stealing a certain someone’s powercord and moving it to a mysterious outlet that can never be located orswearing it has become his power cord, poking his wife in the ribs or tickling her for “fun” (HIS fun, mind you, not hers), and spending hours upon hours gazing into the eyes of his other lover, his powerbook (usuallyfixed on the TXP forum). But aren’t those the things we always look back on that endear us to each other? I tend to think so, or hope so, since I’ve got my own “dark side” that Matthew endures on a regular basis. These are the things that provide great opportunities for conflict & growth.
TXP Mag: Thanks Amy for answering our investigative question :)
M: Funny how we get to know eachother on a forum like TXP’s, yet how many of us will actually meet in person? Strange isn’t it? I actuallly had beers with Hakjoon (Patrick, TXP forum moderator) in Virginia last weekend, as my wife’s family lives in the same town he’s in.
Q. Was is exciting to meet someone you only know digital?
M: It was really fun, and slightly surreal. Our wives made fun of us, because, while on the phone we had to ask what each other were wearing in order to connect, which obviously sounding very “date-ish”. I really value some of the friendships I have that are thus far only digital, and have made connections with people all over the globe who share a love of things digital and things geek, and sometimes things spiritual. Hak (Patrick) and I had a great time getting nerdy about CMS’s, about TXP, and about the ongoing work with Better Image Management for TXP as well. I’m a little more geared toward design and Hak, toward development, but we have tons of overlap, and overall I learned a ton from sitting down with him over a “Satan’s Pony” an amber ale proprietary to Charlottesville, Virginia, where we met up. Patrick looked different than I imagined him, but he’s even cooler in person than he is on the forums. He’s a smart dude, and if we lived in the same town we’d hang out a bunch. He’s of the same branch. It was fun to get loopy over code and ale.
TXP Mag: Thanks Amy and Matthew. It was a pleasure talking to you.
Matthew Smith can be hired as freelance designer. Please contact him for futher information.