New series started

So kids I started a new series of pieces, these will all be wall hangers, something new to me, additionally they will be indoor pieces. I have been doing my usual extended submersion in style and color studies before actually making anything. I have been gathering pieces and parts to produce my style of art, repurposed recycled “STUFF” as I like to call it. New to me in this series is the prevalent use of plastic. I have shied away from plastics in the past due to the inability of plastic pieces to maintain shape in a hot outdoor environment. I have now embraced to plastic god at the getting places (Goodwill, Desert Industries, and dumpsters). Pictures will be up in works in progress soon. Peace

OH BTW ILOOK AT THE PAST

I’m an amature astronomer of sorts, I own a 16 inch MEAD dobsonian telescope

TRUTH

"I’m not too concerned for the Mother Earth, seeing how the Universe is approximately 13.772 billion years old, the Earth is 4.543 billion years old, and humans are a mere 200,000 old and civilization is approximately 6,000 years old. The Earth will do just fine without its human infestation as it has for more than 4 billion years. Unfortunately, the good Earth will not be inhabitable or recognizable in several hundred years. Like kids left to their own devices we do not poses the intellect nor the foresight to comprehend all of our actions we undertake for purely selfish reasons. It’s been a great run lots of fun was had and all for what? Well the future will be great for somebody someplace even if it’s not on this rock circling the sun in this solar system."  

ok then

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i will leave this here

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THIS IS ME

Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.  

Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:

need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation

need to communicate ideas and values

need to solve problems  

In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives. the ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown. 

All who study creativity agree that for something to be creative, it is not enough for it to be novel: it must have value, or be appropriate to the cognitive demands of the situation."

I’M A CREATIVE

In the last 5 years I resurrected and embraced the creative side of myself. Along the way I started to wonder about  how does this creativity thing works. I resurrected this creativity thing from a much earlier Matt from about 1970. Fast forward 40 years and here I am again creative Matt. So here are some general observations on the nature of creativity.  

Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.  

Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:

need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation

need to communicate ideas and values

need to solve problems  

In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives. the ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown.

 All who study creativity agree that for something to be creative, it is not enough for it to be novel: it must have value, or be appropriate to the cognitive demands of the situation."

more back story

I will begin this interaction in very late 2019 and progress into early 2020. This incarnation of Matt Houston started with an invitation to attend Burning Man  as part of an established village. My son Matthew's partner Heidi Mader is a Burner she was aware of my interest in attending a Burn and invitation was extended for Burning Man 2020 planning started immediately.

I had decided to create latter bracelets using reclaimed stone and glass beads that my wife Vickie and I had gathered with the sole purpose of repurposing the beads. My initial thoughts were to help defray the entry fees to Burning Man I would produce and sell these bracelets and would gift any left over at the event.  Below is some  of these Leather latter bracelets.    

The next step in my progression involved the use of 1.5 mm nylon cord. My lovely wife Mrs. Vickie was creating beaded woven bracelets using very fine cord with beads. I went with her to the getting place and found this nifty 1.5 mm Nylon cord.  This cord is incredibly strong, color fast and durable as well as colorful. On this path I learned a lot about 1.5 mm nylon cord which did not come easy even after extensive searches online. The issue at hand was that the getting place had a very limited color selection and did not have 2 very important colors, yellow and orange. I eventually found a source in Los Angeles with a huge color selection that for what I can tell is the manufacture in Mexico.

Progressing on from the nylon my next choice of materials was cotton cord both 1.5 mm and 3 mm in what I call old school cotton string/cord colors. This cord is also referred to as bakers cord in the 1.5 mm size. These cords are easy to procure and have wide availability. This cotton cord is soft and very pliable wears well as I can tell from having them on my wrist for 14 months. As with the Nylon I pursued all combinations and variances I could create. Peace 

The introduction of Tie Dye T shirts to my pile o fun started about March or April of 2020. This led to the use of my dye's to color natural cotton cord and cotton cloth. I use Jacard Proxom MX reactive dyes. These acid Dye's require the cotton that is to be dyed to soak in a solution of soda ash for 20-30 minutes minimum which allows the dye into the cotton fibers making these dyes very bright and very color fast after the first wash. Peace    

Late April and into May of 2020 was an interesting blur of creativity and creation. I started producing Glass Spiders, spiders made out of wire and beads.  I started to make bracelets out of a 3 mm nylon cord commercially sold as "prayer" cord roseries. These bracelets were macramé with metal claspes  I produced the first Moon and Stars piece which incorporated all the materials I had on hand for making bracelets. I dyed all the macramé, cotton tassel and cotton beard pieces. From the very 1st piece in the series I had already developed design ques that I would continue to refine and use on almost every piece.  

MATT HOUSTON

"My creations are the result of a combination of art and design; utmost care for details, painstaking search for the harmony of shapes and poetic style characterize my projects. One of my work’s priorities is the search for the expressive language of objects, which may fascinate people by evoking emotions."

 So, I started using the title "Artist" as to what I do over 3 years ago. I was kind of reluctant to use the title at first when people ask "what do you do".  The bigger question is why do I do it 'art" and were does this "art" come from. First off I have always been a repurposer, going back to the early 60's as a youth I wanted to "make" things. My first real exposure to what I do was in 8th grade art class, it was a struggle. In high school art class I found my stride and learned some skills in design and ceramics. My early 1st round of college (1975) at MWSC introduced me to Mr Jim Estes and the ceramics course taught in a converted 1950's basement house. I grew artistically during this period being surrounded by what I perceived at the time as way more talented people than me.

 This is the part of the story that is about, well life. After several ceramics courses at MWSC I started down the road of provide for the family. I gravitated toward occupations revolving around the making of something. Several decades latter (5) I picked back up with the creative making of stuff right before the pandemic in 2020.

 Well here we are, I retired in 2023 and I am now a full time artist. My work is all about progressions in style and form. I use color, a lot of color. Visually I make complex, engaging pieces that incorporate movement, light reflection, and texture of course all of this is original work. Everything I create, begins with me wanting something it could be tools to make stuff or simply that I want beautiful things around me. I'm prolific in my output and I'm driven to create more and strive to push the progression in my work.

So, I'm not always the smart one, I have been doing "art" for a long time. This current run of me doing Matt "stuff" is going on 4 years now. I just realized that the individual parts of the process of creating brings untold amounts of joy into my life. Each part of the process is unique and controlled by me and when an idea is formalized into a solid tangible object that did not exist before I am very happy