Matt Johnson

FAVORITE BEVERAGE RECIPE

Tequila Gimlet

• 1 part tequila

• 1/4 part Rose’s lime

• Splash of olive juice or vermouth

• 2 olives 

BIOGRAPHY

Matt spent his high school years here in Carbondale, which is also when he became enthralled with ceramics. He went on to study Ceramics, Painting and Drawing at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, and then returned to the Roaring Fork Valley and was the director of the Woody Creek Ceramics Studio, a non profit with COMPASS and the Community School. After nearly five years teaching wheel throwing and sculpture to ages from Kindergarten through adult, Matt became a teacher at the Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork, where he taught many subjects including arts, woodwork, stone carving, and more academic classes as well. He spent the last three years delving into furniture design with his father, a long time furniture maker and woodcarver. Matt has continued to weave ceramic work into his practice and has done some mixed media projects with wood and clay as well.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Being the youngest of a large family, I was surrounded by this family culture that seemed to breed creativity, so taking that on myself was a natural progression.  My first creative love was drawing, until high school when I discovered wheel throwing. In college, I began sculpting and painting whereas wheel throwing became something I did more for practical reasons (replenishing my cupboards, making gifts, etc.). This continued after college and I continued to delve deeper into figurative sculpture. One thread that has run through all my work is the one I started with…. drawing. 

The first time I drew an image on a pot was like jumping off a ledge. I had been making pots so long, striving towards a certain degree of perfectionism, that the thought of marring the surface was counter intuitive. But something strange happened as I forced myself to do it more; I began to see the pot as a canvas from the moment I centered the clay.