Painter Matt Jones and I go back a number of years. The conversation below is part one of a conversation we had in Matt's Bushwick studio on May 22, 2016. This conversation has been several years in the making as we both have been through many personal ups and downs over the years and have recently realized how much we actually like one another. It's candid and covers many different subjects ranging from Magic the Gathering, to art history and how we were both so obnoxious addicts at one time. The transcript has been edited for readability and will appear in full in an upcoming book. Enjoy.
MN: Didn't you go to graduate school?
MJ: I never went to graduate school I had this 'Cooper community', and then I started that 1980 collective that came out of the Yale Norfolk group in 2001.
MN: I remember that. You had a website for it.
MJ: I still pay for that website (laughs).
MN: You do? It still exists?
MJ: There's nothing on it. I hold on to those things because I feel that there's value in these things that might be re-accessed.
MN: That's a big part of what I do. I really like domain names. I've been trying to push this slang of like; you know how some girls are really too much into their pets? I've been calling it "animal husbandry. You see these girls walking around in love with their dogs- animalhusbandry.com looks viable.
MJ: Somebody owns it or doesn't own it?
MN: I don't think so, I don't recall.
MJ: I go to Google or Godaddy all the time, that's where they have all my domain names just sitting there. I have dozens. Remember Tali when she was little?
MN: Mm-hmm
MJ: I did a video project with her. She would get super bored at the house. She would say, "I don't wanna read a story. I don't wanna do this or that... So I would say, "OK, we're going to shoot a dumb art video now." I stood behind her, gave her a mic, and I held this painting that had all these eyeballs painted on it and I moved it around behind her. I zoomed in on Tali and I said, "just say 'p-h-t-h' over and over", so she just kept on saying "p-h-t-h-p-h-t-h" and would just get super frustrated because she would say it fast and kept fucking it up and it was really sweet in this time capsule. She didn't say no. She was probably like, "let's do that", it's better than what my five-year-old brain was hating on.
So I bought phth.biz like eight years ago! I started an Instagram because I like fantasy art and I want to share fantasy art that I get excited about and I didn't want to flood my Instagram with it, so I started the @phthphth Instagram account.
MN: I knew that was you. At first I didn't make the connection, I just thought it was someone you were real close with.
MJ: I lied on my own Instagram feed, "I found this great fantasy art post." (laughs)
MN: Yeah, who cares? I like it. It's funny.
MJ: What that turned into is something else. My buddies are obsessed with Star Wars Card Trader. You know that app?
MN: No.
MJ So you get like 25,000 credits a day and you can buy packs and then you can open the packs. This is all digital, nothing physical at all. You open the packs and there are rare ones, cheap ones, this and that. I started to spend money online, I would buy some of them on eBay- I had to stop. Kadar and Billy were like everyday, "Man, I'm chasing the card of the day like teal, red variants... They showed me a picture of it so I started drawing dicks on it in Photoshop. They showed me a Rancor Card or a Shmi Skywalker card or whatever. I started getting complex with it, taking out parts and turn them into x-rays, spending way too much time doing these sorts of things so now I just post them to phth. It would be six hours of work doing this stuff.
pulled from @phthphth on instagram
MN: Right, I saw some Boris Vallejo shit or that type of stuff. I like a lot of that stuff though.
MJ: All that stuff like Frank Frazetta, I just get weepy.
MN: Yeah, I can see that. There's Magic Cards on the floor.
MJ: Yeah, I haven't played Magic in like a year.
MN: You were really into that. You still really into that? What do you do now like Doom or something?
MJ: I started playing Doom, but I don't actually play it. Emily and I play Diablo 3 a lot together. I like a lot of those things. There are times in your life when you need something to focus on, when you're focusing on all this other shit in your life. And in the Magic based community I thought I could make a difference while playing this game I really like. I helped found a nerd blog. I would write tournament reports every single week. I don't really write for them anymore because I don't really go to tournaments anymore. I was spending a lot of money going to DC or Las Vegas for tournaments. I wasn't particularly good because I didn't want to spend the time to be good. I liked the people, I liked hanging out.
MN: That's how I feel about online chess.
MJ: You get intense about online chess?
MN: Yeah, all the time.
MJ: Really?
MN: Yeah, you play?
MJ: No. I don't play chess. I feel like everyone who plays chess is better and smarter than me.
MN: I'm average; win about as many as I lose. I just like it.
MJ: Where do you play?
MN: Zynga free chess app.
MJ: Whom do you play?
MN: Whatever friends get on there mostly, but sometimes I play a rando. I got about half a dozen games going all the time. Make a couple of moves, dick around with my phone, do something else, then go back in.
MJ: Oh-Ok.
MN: Slow. Real slow.
MJ: I think what I do now instead of playing Magic is read. I feel like I read 300 times more than I ever have. I feel like I used to read things I thought I was supposed to read, I basically now I read things I get really excited about.
MN: I've always read a lot, which is why I never really got into anything else. except music. Yeah, reading about music too.
MJ: When you are reading it's really difficult to have much time to do anything else. I get really excited to get on the train so I can have a solid 40 minutes to read.
MN: I can blow off anything to sit on the couch, scratch my ass and read.
(everyone bursts out laughing)
I don't really think about that on a day-to-day basis because I really don't need to
2013-2016
Oil on canvas
48x36in (122x91cm)
MN: Let's look at paintings. The space pictures you have been doing for a long time, right? That's like your metaphysical interest?
MJ: They do so much in a very small space. They let me riff on and love abstract painting, abstract painting history, and also indulge myself in science stuff that I read. You can rock with metaphysical science books then make a space painting. Talk about them simultaneously.
MN: You can connect the "micro" and the "macro" in this really perfect way. There's the random element of the drops.
MJ: It actually took me a little while to get it right. There's a guy who recently saved a bunch of money and bought one of those small ones over there. He said he tried to make one when he wanted space paintings in this play he was working on. He's like, "I kept fucking it up". It's actually kind of hard and I was like, "Yeah. I know what I'm doing"
MN: You have to figure it out yourself.
MJ: You just didn't do enough!
MN: It's about holding the brush loose like this (shows Matt). I constantly have to do spatters to make fake concrete for scenery in movies.
MJ: Those are great paintings too.
MN: Yeah those are excellent paintings. They are spattered like the space paintings and it's one of many steps. It's tough getting (the marks) to be non-directional.
MJ: To control it you have to be right on top of it. These are super thin layers of different types of blacks that then have varying degrees of white in them because they will do different things. There's others that are really thick. There are very thick space paintings. It's nice because you can use this one thing and then do all these different types of investigations throughout.
This one looks better framed
MN: Some of them are like old-time abstraction too.
MJ: Yes.
MN: 1950's abstraction. Do you give a shit about history?
MJ: I super give a shit about history.
MN: I think anyone who's concerned with the future is really investigating history. I think that's the only way towards a futurism.
MJ: Any time you choose any discipline you become responsible for everything that came before you.
MN: That part is a pain in the ass because you don't sign up for that.
MJ: You don't think you do, but you definitely did. You think, I'm just going to paint, but then you paint everything that has come before you. You need to know that shit. You need to know who your ancestors are, lineages, who you are painting to now, who you are painting to, who you're painting for, why you're painting at all.
MN: You are absolutely right. It's the same if you write, make films, do anything, and the longer you stay in the game, the more that matters, because when you're young you get a pass. (pointing) Oh, that painting is really good.
MJ: This one is my parents'. My mom has my second favorite space painting at her house. It's a red one and I only made one red one ever. She came in here and said, "I really like this space painting." I was like "Mom- you can swap them out."
MN: I think this one is really good. It gets closer to the fantasy art that you're into.
MJ: Yeah.
MN: it's closer to the classic illustration style.
MJ: There's more imagination space in that one. The other ones look almost factual compared to this.
MN; There's something about this, the milky flares that give the impression of nebulae.
MJ: My friend had sent me a picture of something. He sent me a picture of the back of a comic book he saw at a flea market and said, "This looks like something you would like". "I do like this". He said, "you should paint this for me". I said, "Like you wanna own it?" he said, "I just want to see it." Then I painted it sorta realistically and tight.
MN: Wait, as the replica of...
MJ: The back of a comic book. Can you tell what's in there? It ended up being this intense expressionist thing. There's legit stuff going on in there.
MN: You're really into German painting still, right?
MJ: Yeah, I'm super into German painting.
MN: I remember you always liked (Martin) Kippenberger.
MJ: He's still the number one jam.
MN: That's your number one guy?
MJ: Yeah I think so.
MN: He's one of mine. I don't paint anymore but yeah, he was big for me.
MJ: I'm into really ancient stuff. I've been super obsessed with Tiepolo the past year-ish. (Pointing) See all the distracting things to the left next to that monster guy? There's a bunch of them in that series, there's one over here, a pinkish one behind the ones we stacked up. They all come from Emily's rewriting this part of Genesis and I didn't know anything about it. I started doing research on my own so I had more access points to engage her on her practice too. I learned Tiepolo did a painting based on the same thing. I love spending time copying Tiepolo, spending time with his paintings, drawing and painting them. So I just painted it a million times or maybe six times and I still think I want to.
MN: Then you just go off and away from it.
MJ: Yeah
MN: Because you don't want to be a wedding band playing covers all night.
MJ: The complicated thing is that in this actual painting its Hagar and Ishmael, an angel. She is Egyptian.
MN: I see it now.
MJ: She's Egyptian and her son is half of whatever Abraham is. They are painted like a David white woman. I like that I can go in and reinvestigate those narratives and play; deal with the fucked up stuff that's hard for me to deal with. Who I am and where I come from, and painting is one of the few things that allows you to activate that stuff. Its definitely the thing that lets me activate that stuff.
MN: It's not literal. It's not didactic telling you that this is that.
MJ: I don't think painting is interested in truth in any way, shape, or form.
MN: No, it's not. There are other mediums that deal with truth better. Painting is better for myth.
MJ: Absolutely better for myth.
MJ: A lot of things have changed and I have this new freedom to explore that I hadn't had before. I wouldn't have allowed myself to make that dumb monster painting. That came from a D&D theme folio.
MN: It's like you have to grow up to be a kid in a way. It's strange.
MJ: You should be a life coach.
MN: Fuck man. I think about shit like this but I also see how terrible it all is. I would make a shitty life coach. An existential life coach.
It's true. I'm finding this with my own work. Again, it's those prejudices you have to overturn. This isn't serious art, but that is serious. Who gives a fuck?
MJ: Yeah. Why am I so...
MN: It's school damage!
MJ: It's not just school, for me its familial damage. My parents like this and they don't like that and even if I don't have the same likes and dislikes that they have, I still have the construct in my brain that thinks I don't have the authority to make that and declare that and to erase, wipe away other things. You know? It's nuts.
MN: Yeah, yeah. I've experienced that too. It probably takes a lifetime of undoing. People spend years in therapy dealing with this.
MJ: I'm freaking right there man. I think therapy is just -the best. I think everyone should get a drinking problem, go to AA, get sober, learn all the tools in there, get therapy and never leave therapy. Get a good therapist. Just learn how to talk about your shit.
MN: I think that's good for some people. I did NA for a little while, it was helpful for the moment.
MJ: Oh yeah. I took the stuff that I liked and I still think about the stuff that I like. I'm sober 9 years.
MN: That's good.
MJ: There are very clear tools that other people don't have. I think it's because if they don't go through those experiences, nobody hands them these tool kits and so much of it comes up. That's because of this and because of that.
You learn from your own experiences until you're not doing any of these things either and you're still fucked up.
MN: Yeah, you're just different fucked up. (laughs)
MJ: (laughs) Yes!
End of part one.