I’ve known Matt for about 23 years, having first met him back when I was an undergraduate student. We became immediate friends. Looking back, it’s funny to remember how he would sometimes tag along and sit in on my college classes, even though he wasn’t actually enrolled at the school. Matt had previously attended Penn State in the 90s. Before our paths crossed, he lived all over the country, spending extensive time in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He gained an extraordinary, real-world education through those travels, often hanging out with beatnik artists and painters. Throughout all the time I’ve known him since 2003, he has been continuously creating art. While he goes through seasons of writing poetry or plays for the stage, which he also enjoys doing, painting remains his primary and most enduring medium.
The complete video interview is available to watch directly above.
The interview took place on a warm Thursday evening in June. As you can see in the footage, Matt works out of his attic, which is quite warm, but it houses his largest collection of artworks, a staggering collection of over 600 paintings. On the back of every canvas, he records the artwork’s details, including its title and meaning. His materials are eclectic, ranging from traditional artist paints to ordinary house paint.
I have watched his paintings evolve significantly over the years. They first began with an exploration of simple lines, then shifted into crosses, and for several years now, he has been deeply fixated on the imagery of the cup of Christ. Alongside the visual art, as I mentioned above, Matt also writes plays and poetry. In fact, Matt and I completed a poetry book in 2018 together, which you can find here: If Humphrey Bogart goes to heaven why can’t I by Thaddaeus Dachille – Issuu.
Since I have known Matt, his walk with the Lord has also visibly strengthened. He has moved from simply enjoying the routine of church to desiring to know Christ on a deeply personal level. Parallel to this pursuit, his artwork has transitioned from abstract lines and color exploration into Christian imagery.
From what I understand, he regularly attends a Lutheran church with his mother, a place where I’m told he truly enjoys attending. I believe it is within the walls of that church where his fascination with the Eucharist began. In the Gospel of John, Jesus uses profound language to emphasize the necessity of taking communion. Jesus speaks of it not just as a historical event, but as an ongoing matter for connecting with Him regularly. “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” — John 6:53–55.
Matt’s interest in the cup of Jesus is profoundly interesting. The cup has several meanings. In scripture, Jesus asked His Father, God, to take the “cup” away in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39). He was asking if He could have the cross and the extraordinary anguish He would experience removed. Of course, as we know, He endured the anguish for our salvation and to complete the scripture and the gospel message. The cup also refers to the container of the blood of Jesus, symbolically consumed as grape juice or wine during communion, both now and historically at the Last Supper (Matthew 26:27-28). Matt’s interest in this phenomenon of the cup is curious and appears to be ongoing, as he has painted this concept for several years now.
From the first meeting with Matt two decades ago to today, I know that Matt has never stopped creating. But, I think his most significant development isn’t found in the transition of his abstract lines and colors of his early years to the imagery he now paints, but in the way Matt has begun working with eternal concepts. The cup of Christ captures the entire gospel message. In the end, his massive archive of paintings is no longer just a record of an eclectic, traveled life; it is the visual diary of a man seeking personal connection with Christ, and leaving a permanent record of his faith on every canvas.
