When life handed Matt Beard brushes and paints, he didn't just create art—he crafted a life story as vivid and impactful as his canvases. From his early days as a jobless artist to his philosophical musings and self-made success, Matt's journey is a testament to the transformative power of art and faith. His transition from oceanography to art in Humboldt's dynamic cultural landscape reveals the quirky, adaptive nature of a creator's life, where a ping-pong table's demise at work can become a cherished memory and designing a label can unexpectedly lead to a seven-year career detour.
Matt's tale doesn't just stay within the borders of Humboldt; it's a panoramic view of an artist's struggle and triumph as he paints his way across California. His plein air adventure, sleeping in a van and baptizing his soul in the raw beauty of nature, serves as a vivid backdrop to our conversation about the perils of perfectionism and the joy of capturing a moment on canvas. Throughout, you'll discover how Matt's personal and professional worlds collide, whether it's through a 'Jesus walk' that reconnects him with the simplicity of faith, or the challenge of balancing the intensity of his craft with the harmony of family life.
Ending on a heartwarming note, Matt's poetic endeavor underscores the essence of our episode: the enduring legacy of a good heart. His reflections on surfing, solitude in the waves, and an unforgettable meeting with surf legend Greg Noll encapsulate how art and life can't be separated. So grab your favorite beverage (just not near your art supplies), and prepare to be inspired by the story of a man whose every stroke is a step towards kindness, understanding, and the unspoken promise that a good heart does indeed go a long way.
Find us on Facebook at 100% Humboldt.
When life handed Matt Beard brushes and paints, he didn't just create art—he crafted a life story as vivid and impactful as his canvases. From his early days as a jobless artist to his philosophical musings and self-made success, Matt's journey is a testament to the transformative power of art and faith. His transition from oceanography to art in Humboldt's dynamic cultural landscape reveals the quirky, adaptive nature of a creator's life, where a ping-pong table's demise at work can become a cherished memory and designing a label can unexpectedly lead to a seven-year career detour.
Matt's tale doesn't just stay within the borders of Humboldt; it's a panoramic view of an artist's struggle and triumph as he paints his way across California. His plein air adventure, sleeping in a van and baptizing his soul in the raw beauty of nature, serves as a vivid backdrop to our conversation about the perils of perfectionism and the joy of capturing a moment on canvas. Throughout, you'll discover how Matt's personal and professional worlds collide, whether it's through a 'Jesus walk' that reconnects him with the simplicity of faith, or the challenge of balancing the intensity of his craft with the harmony of family life.
Ending on a heartwarming note, Matt's poetic endeavor underscores the essence of our episode: the enduring legacy of a good heart. His reflections on surfing, solitude in the waves, and an unforgettable meeting with surf legend Greg Noll encapsulate how art and life can't be separated. So grab your favorite beverage (just not near your art supplies), and prepare to be inspired by the story of a man whose every stroke is a step towards kindness, understanding, and the unspoken promise that a good heart does indeed go a long way.
Find us on Facebook at 100% Humboldt.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, my new best friend, matt Beard. Welcome to 100% Humboldt Podcast, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, yeah, thanks for being ahead. So we all want to know the Matt Beard story. Tell us all about you.
Speaker 1:What's your job, what do you do? Where'd you come from Beard story? Well, technically I don't have't have, I haven't had a job in a long time. The jobless fat beard, I mean, you know, art's a job, right, it's a job, absolutely self-employed job. But yeah, it's a funny. It's a funny, funny reality. Just to have to wake up and go, what? What am I doing today? Right, self-employed. Yeah, just to have to wake up and go. What am I doing today? Right, self-employed. Yeah, what's your boss want you to do today? Right, that's a scary question. So, where'd you come from? Where were you born and how'd you get here? Oh, I grew up sorry, brush the mic I grew up in Long Beach, southern California.
Speaker 1:Moved up here 18, 1993 for Humboldt State, didn't know a person, didn't even come up here for the weed, just wanted to get away from Southern California. Long Beach is pretty crowded. Yeah, I saw a satellite photo about 20 years ago, but I was working at the frame shop and somewhere on a satellite photo, and this was before we had like Google Earth, and it was the entire Southern California sprawl, like LA and Orange County, and you can see the inland mountains, this gray blob spreading of concrete, and you could see enough detail. I could figure out where the house I grew up in was. Oh, that's funny, right in the middle. You had to go an hour in every direction to get away and I never realized. We were like I thought, yeah, long Beach, yeah, it's not bad, we're kind of near the beach, it's cool. But like, wow, we were really confined, concrete jungle, literally. It was intense. So coming up here was like summer camp year round. Yeah, camp year round, yeah, awesome. Just, I remember driving with my dad through Ukiah and then coming up into Willits and everything I'm going. I've never seen open mountains like this is great. I mean, san Diego had some mountains, but this is extraordinary.
Speaker 1:So did you study art at Humboldt? Yeah, yeah, yeah, started out oceanography. Me too, thinking, thinking then I'll, I'll have to work near the ocean, and they convinced me that you continue down this path, you're going to end up on a boat in the middle of the ocean for six months a year and I'm like that's even further from the beach than an office job. So this is not working Than Long Beach, yeah. So I switched to art. My folks weren't really feeling that. I moved home first semester, nice, yeah, long story Ended up coming back up.
Speaker 1:So the folks didn't like the new art major. Yeah, they were like, what are you going to do with that? And I was like, well, I'll pick up a minor in philosophy on the way. Yeah, that's pretty useful. And they were like, well, okay, I don't know that's useful. Yeah, no, my dad used to grab me by my little beard when I was coming back to Oceanside from Humboldt. Yeah, he goes, what are those liberals teaching you up there, those communists? And he was just like hardcore. And I would go. I don't know, I like my classes Right, I'm a straight B student. I got this so, and you know, now it's Cal Poly, humboldt, that it is. That seems to come a lot, nick, you know it's like Humboldt State, humboldt County, cal Poly, humboldt, because most people I would say many, imports like you and I, socal Bay Area, Humboldt State, right.
Speaker 1:So did you meet your wife there too? She moved up here. I met her up here, but not at Humble State. She was going to CR and she was volunteering. We have a convoluted story of how we met, but she was volunteering at the Pregnancy Care Center, okay, pregnancy Care Center, okay. And I had just gone through a pretty wild well encounter with God. That I couldn't explain, but it changed me and I jumped into trying to explain what had happened to me through the faith I grew up with.
Speaker 1:So I jumped into going to church and doing the, the very familiar, yeah, christianity, and I my, I was sincere in it and in that, through those connections, people I met at that time I was doing a Bible study out on Samoa with with a buddy who came to the house I was living at and you know he was a farmer, you know we had weed growing in the closet and all that, and I was sort of like sort of making sense of the world here and my roommate that was growing the weed, he was like, hey, you should meet my friend Steve. He's always talking to me about Jesus too, and so we get hanging out. So he's a character, really, really awesome guy. We're still friends to this day and a friend of his that he went to school with was this lady who ran the pregnancy center and she was like I don't know, she was a little older and more mature and she was frustrated with me and him, just like you guys got to get your act together and pull it together, yeah, and we were like why we're doing? We're doing all the thing weed guys, we seemed like we were doing pretty good farmers, but, um, no, I mean, you know, I don't know, I don't know if steve was at the time doing that or not. I wasn't. I just I lived around it and I lived around it and had my year of jumping in, yeah, so anyway, that was the connection through this lady coming over to the pregnancy center and saw this gal volunteering and I was like, hmm, probably hang out with her. I'll ask you about her later. It turned out we could, and I don't want to throw names out, but I'm kind of curious. So you and I have a parallel journey.
Speaker 1:I was an ocean major from Southern California, okay, met Joni, who went to CR, ah, ah, and then tried to lens my God experience, which is very real. I mean, moved to some Christians who were like normal and they weren't sacrificing goats or doing weird stuff and I tried to lens it. And don't we do this. We lens this. Whatever new revelation or knowledge or experience. We lens it through old wineskins, through old ways of doing it, and mine was Adventist, seventh-day Adventistism. So how does this fit into a Saturday Sabbath? And it didn't really work. It was shoving something into something to understand it. So, you know, suspending judgment and to try to absorb new data. And I met Joni and we were just good friends for a long time, which was probably the right answer, because I was goofy I know you can't believe it. I had really long hair. It was beautiful. It know you can't believe it, I had really long hair. It was beautiful. It was blonde, beautiful blonde hair.
Speaker 1:What happened, dad? I go, what happened to you? I go, used to be cool, huh. And they go, yeah, oh man, I go. You guys and drugs and time and age, you messed me up, man. My 16-year-old said the other day he's like I don't know back in, like I don't think he said the year, but when I had an art space inside the surf shop in arcata, so I was like 2015, he's like I don't know back then you used to be cool, ouch. What even happened? What happened to you dad? Who was the surf shop owner? He was a nice guy. Oh, which one? The one in Arcata, where the first one, oh, the Humboldt Surf Company back in the days Well, he wasn't the original, as far as I know there's been a series. Who was the main Humboldt Surf Company was Kirk, kirk. He was cool, kirk and Kirk. He was cool. Kirk and Diane. Yeah, that was your art, he was a character. Yeah, yeah, he was a character. Yeah, you know, he used to.
Speaker 1:I was doing these like little illustrations on rice paper and then guys could have them, you could put it in the under the glass of a surfboard. So they were like these little original pieces of art, you know, and I'd spend like an evening. I'd spend like an evening. I'd do one or two of them and I'd take them down to the shop so he could put them in the counter for sale, oh right. And he'd buy them from me straight up. He'd pay 30 bucks for one and I thought he was selling them for 50 or 60. And they were his collection. Well, years later, so he I mean it was like kind of my little supplement side thing he would just every couple of weeks he'd buy. A few more.
Speaker 1:Years later, when he was moving off the plaza and back into the little space, he called me in the back. He's like, hey, check it out. He pulled out a folder and I was like it's cool that he had them, but I thought that people were buying them. He had a portfolio. They weren't. He was just supporting me through those years. He was like this, that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's pretty nice. I had some feels out of it, disappointing and cool. Yeah, right, both at once. Hey, where is this? That's great. So I was going to ask you.
Speaker 1:So you went to Humboldt, created art. So you came back and finished your degree, yeah, so you came back and finished your degree, yeah, okay. Yeah, it was only a semester. I was down. I took a semester off. Then married your sweetheart. No, finished the degree up here, I met her in the middle of actually towards the end even and then we both moved to SoCal. So, okay, so yeah, I had a semester off of Humboldt State, moved back home, came back up and then we met. I graduated, we moved down to Long Beach for another year. Gotcha, I just lowered the chair. That was really awkward, that's okay. So, yeah, we married down there, lived like nine months and then moved back up here as soon as we could. We got there to Port Saccol Wedding Chapel I think I told you that right in San Pedro Harbor. Oh, pedro, remember the old little seaport village there? I know it's down there. Yeah, know of it. Yeah, wedding's on the hour. You should check it out. All right.
Speaker 1:So, real quick, I want to give a plug for you, or you two. Well, people are watching and listening to this. They could go online and look Is it beardartcom? That should get you there. But it's mattbeardartcom, matt Beard. Yeah, b-e-a-r-d like a beard. Yeah, like the bigger one that you have. That I have Exactly. Yeah, I changed.
Speaker 1:It used to be forever, it was beardart and I had a logo and everything like beard art, you know. And my first studio space that I had was in Henderson Center. Well, my first public like. So I had a shop, you know that was in Henderson Center between the barber, and then there was a hair salon and then Esmeralda's. I was a little spot. I think it's a jeweler now Over in Grotto. But I put a sign yeah, grotto. But I put a sign, yeah, grotto. So I put a sign up with the logo that just said BeardArt. And I was there, I think two years, and a good friend was like after two years she was like, oh wait, this is you in here. I've been driving by forever and I saw the sign BeardArt and I just thought it was someone doing like braiding poodles into hipsters' beards or something. And I was like, you know, now that's in Portland, I should probably make it Matt Beard Art, just to make it clear, just to make sure. Yeah, that's a good distinction. So, mattbeardartcom, you have a website. Yeah, you're on Facebook. Yes, nice, so we can find you on LinkedIn, instagram, linkedin. Tiktok Is going to be Facebook and Instagram. Yeah, seems like that's where everybody is.
Speaker 1:So what do you like about what you do? What's, what are you proud of? And then I want to cycle into, like the art community and Humboldt and kind of your thoughts on. You know, like, yeah, just, you know, I graduated at 98 and just kind of made a commitment. Nothing, nothing formal, but I just said I don't want to get roped into working full time. But I wasn't able to do art full time either. There's no way starting out that that was going to be feasible. So I just I worked a bazillion different part-time jobs, you know construction, stocking beer and dog food at the co-op, and picture framing, just random stuff.
Speaker 1:What was fun? What was fun in any of that? Well, the co-op was fun when they had a ping-pong table until we abused that privilege and then it became not so fun, it became gone. Yeah, and yeah Became the background. That was a weird art. That was a great time. That was I. I enjoyed working there, but it was six in the morning. You had to be there every day and they, they wanted me there earlier. I don't know, I'm not a morning person. Was david lipman your gm at the time? Because he was probably later than you? That rings a bell. He's a good friend of ours that retired from the Arcata Co-op.
Speaker 1:By the way, my shtick, it's really funny, so polite laughs Located right here in Arcata, california, the top of the bay. For you guys, unversed and humbled, yeah, geography. And I'll tell the best joke that I ever tell and maybe I'll save it. Did you hear the one about the cartographer that couldn't get a job because he had no sense of Yuma? All right, that's pretty good. You have to explain it. That's pretty good. Yuma is in Arizona. Yeah, it took a second. Sorry, I like the map, though I'm getting distracted. It's like Yuma's not on that map. No, it's way over there. Yeah, that's what was throwing me off there. It's out over there on Myrtle Avenue.
Speaker 1:So the co-op was fun until the ping pong went away. Until the ping pong was gone, yeah, nice, it's not fun anymore. Until the ping pong was gone. There might be a song in there. I think it's a poem at least, yeah, and then oh, yeah, so, yeah, that was interesting.
Speaker 1:So that was while working at the co-op. That was back like what, 2008, 2009? And all the grow shops, the hydroponic shops, were really booming. That was like boom time for them. Yeah, and guys that had the Fertile World shop down like B Street, maybe B and 4th I'm not sure what their address is, but they had me do a label for some like fertilizer product they had, okay, and I drew the artwork for it and they printed it up because they'd been making fertilizers for their friends forever and you know.
Speaker 1:But they just had no labels. They weren't, they were only doing it just for people. They knew they weren't trying to make a commercial go of it. They had me do this label and and, uh, they had it on the shelf and some of the reps came in and were like, dude, what's this? We could sell this. And so they started a company and they, they wanted me to work for them. And I was like, well, um, I got like a job at the co-op, you know, and they have like a part time and they've got health insurance. And you know, I'm like and they're like, well, we'll pay you better. And you know, they convinced me to do it. And I was thinking this is maybe dumb, because maybe I'm only going to work for like six months and I'll design some labels and then they'll be like okay, we don't need you. And that turned into about like seven years of work.
Speaker 1:The business really took off. Yeah, we got to go to trade shows and do all kinds of um, it was fun, it was a lot of fun. I was like drawing bumblebees and being like having a real job. They called me a marketing director and, um, I didn't market one. They labeled you One thing for them because I didn't know about it, like it's pretty technical. They knew all the stuff. I'd be like, how am I supposed to market this? You tell me what you have. You tell me how to market. I'll just draw the pictures. You know, do the pictures. And so I could do the pictures. I figured out how to you know websites and catalogs and all the graphics stuff. So it was kind of a crash course and like a little bit more of a graphic.
Speaker 1:So was this a time when graphics were taking off in terms of Adobe and Photoshop and things like that? Because it seems like that's a point where there was a spike in software. Yeah, I mean, my nemesis was Illustrator. Okay, because I could do all these graphics and photoshop as an artist, like making handmade stuff right, like draw the, the drawing and and ink the lines real clean and then scan them. And I could use illustrator to clean up the lines. I gotcha. But man, trying to create work in that program when you're not a um, like the learning curve is nerd. I just couldn't get it.
Speaker 1:And then and it used to be no big deal, like before, you could bring any art to a t-shirt guy and they would do all the figuring out. And somewhere during those years I started getting so frustrated because they people would want you to do a t-shirt and the t-shirt printers would be, like well, it has to be vector. Oh, like well, dang it. Like, come on, man, 10 years ago it didn't have to be vector. There was no vector. Now everything has to be vector. Come on, like the old guys could figure this stuff out.
Speaker 1:Speaking of t-shirt guys, I don't know if we mentioned this at lunch the other day. Do you know david smith, the grateful dead teacher? Yeah, yeah, he's been a long time. Yeah, he's still seventh day, wasn't he? Or he was been the old days days Could have been. When I met him back in, I mean, like gosh, I would have been around like 2000 or something.
Speaker 1:I did a couple pieces for him and I don't think they really took off. Well, they were probably. He was all deadheads for Jesus. Yeah, they were all tie-dye, everything's tie-dye. He goes to all the dead things. I think my shirts were probably weird. They didn't really work, but he was a nice dude, fertilizer great T-shirts, I mean. Yeah, I remember he was super into the Grateful Dead. He's like check this one out, this one, like the gospel's in this, you know, dead song. And it's true, I've got a really good shirt from him. It's a typewriter and anyway, the design here and over there.
Speaker 1:So tell us about the art community that you were raised up in here, how you've related to artists and Humboldt, if you have, and you know, short of talking smack, which I don't think you could or would. But what's the environment here and where's it going? It's a pretty fertile art community. No, this place is cool for art it really is. It's there's kind of it's like, there's like the the. The good things about Humboldt for art are also what makes it challenging. Ah, how, so Like they're. The community is so strong. There's so much creativity and so much art and so much love for art, so much support for art Like it's. It's um, art is really revered, but it's also really common. So, um, and good art, yeah, yeah, good, great art. You know it's um great art.
Speaker 1:So the challenge here to make a go of art and I kinda this sort of gelled for me when I was working one of the jobs I had for a while is working at the picture frame shop Eureka Art and Frame. Yeah, right over here in Eureka, california. Yeah, right, it said Humboldt, I see it right there. Yeah, which is where my gallery is speaking of. If there's a plug right there, your gallery's still there. It's still inside Eureka, right around the corner from Rick and Fire restaurant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my name is literally on the building. It's awkward. I've seen that and I figured you would base out of there and I could come and see you and hang. It's just a gallery, it's just a gallery. And I put I had to put my like. I was like, wow, I feel funny, like having my name on a building but like there's no windows, there's no entrance, it's through the frame shop. I'm like if I didn't put that there, people would probably just not even figure out.
Speaker 1:Don and his wife, are they still around? Eureka Frame, oh, they were downtown on E Street forever, really, paul. Paul, yeah, thank you, paul. And Linda, yeah, they still own the building. Are they still around? They come up sometimes. I haven't seen them for a long time.
Speaker 1:Super nice people. Yeah, yeah, real gentle, yeah, so I worked for them for probably five or six, seven years. Okay yeah, small world and Brick and Fire ain't too bad either. No, it's not, it's pretty delicious. Anyway, sorry, go ahead, I don't know what was I Art in Humboldt County and your place? Oh, yeah, so when I was working there, that's what I remember just realizing like, because the really fun thing as an artist how many artists would come in for getting ready for a show, to have stuff framed and you know you'd be framing a lot of like photos of people's poodles and stuff too. Like seeing the artists come in. That was always a highlight.
Speaker 1:Got to meet a lot of people that I'd looked up to for years and just getting to know people and started realizing, you know, like everybody that is making a go of art as a career, not just a hobby, is either well, like they are doing something more than just local. They're all doing something out of the area. They have a bigger emphasis, something bigger than just doing shows around town. So outreach, yeah, and there's some that do shows around town. So outreach, yeah, and there's some that do shows around town and they probably are doing pretty well, but for the most part, not every artist is in a position where they have to make a livelihood from it, because maybe your spouse works and it's a hobby and you're not at it all the time, yeah, or it's an outlet, it's just a creative, it's on your off time.
Speaker 1:But what I wanted to do was just I wanted to do art because I didn't like to work mostly. That's a lot of candor. I was taking notes and going how do you do this right? And so what I took from that I was like, oh no, you got to get out of the area. So when I would go visit family down south I would take back in those days. I would take, you know, it was cool. There was magazines in those days, there was surf media Like there was like multiple, probably five different surf magazine publications in print that people liked we used to get them all the time. Yeah, so I would go, I would take CDs, you know, of work and go try to meet the art editors.
Speaker 1:I'd hardly ever get past the front desk but I'd just take them down there and sling, sling stuff at them and it never really went anywhere. At the surf magazines, mm-hmm. At the headquarters, mm-hmm, are they mostly LA, orange County, like San Clemente that's. You know I would. It's like surfer and surfer. It was funny. It's like I'd hardly ever get past the receptionist. Like once in a while, like I'd catch them at the right time and someone would have me back and check out the world. They'd be like, oh, this is really cool. And they'd high five me and send me away, thanks for coming. And and then I, yeah, the one year. One year, everything clicked and gosh.
Speaker 1:It seems like I ended up getting some work and surfer, surfing, landing a eight-page spread in the Surfer's Journal, which is like the that's like the Holy Grail it still is of surf media. Is that a monthly subscription? It's monthly, yeah, and there's hardly any ads. It's. It's really good articles. They always feature they don't always, but almost every issue features a different artist. So they it's just you know, it's not like just competitions and board shorts and stuff it's, it's, it's more than that for people that actually read too. You know, culture of serve, yeah, yeah, and so that that was huge. So that launched some things. So, yeah, that that put it like not just local, that that kind of introduced some things.
Speaker 1:And then that was even still kind of tough, like trying to make that go Cause, I'm trying to figure out how to make a website on my own. I don't know. This was 2008 and that's still pretty hard to do. Nobody did it. It's not 20 bucks, yeah, and it's not. Now it's almost pretty easy. But like then, it was like you had to figure things out. It was tough and then, once you have it, what are you going to do with it? So it still was like sputtering along.
Speaker 1:And then what clicked was when, gosh, a couple of friends in San Diego wanted to go painting outdoors. Okay, so I kind of like at 2008, I got that article in the journal and I thought, you know, it'd be cool to be to paint the whole California coast. That's when I first kind of like thought I'm going to try to make a point of doing that. And I went for it and I would paint like maybe eight or ten paintings a year. So and I realized, from city to bar, yeah, but I realized eight or ten paintings a year and we have like 800 miles of coast, this would be a lifetime. I'm not, I won't have enough, I don't, this isn't going to work. And I so I kind of got discouraged. I would do commissions and just plug away at it. But it was like that that goal seems out of reach.
Speaker 1:And then a couple of guys in San Diego, norm Daniels and Wade Konikowski. They I was down there and they were like man, the weather's going to be super clear, let's go paint La Jolla, let's go set up plein air. And I had a spell in around 2000 when I got really into plein air painting and for like a year or two. That's all I did was go out, hike into the hills, explain plein air. It's an easy explanation. Yeah, it's just painting on location, like painting Usually. It's easy explanation. Yeah, when you it's just painting on location, like painting. Usually it's landscape work. It can be it can be like still lifes and stuff, but it's painting from life in the open air, usually outdoors.
Speaker 1:A lot of good plein air painters here. Oh, great, it's phenomenal community here. Yeah, there's some of the greatest in the world live here. We have, like the Jim McVicar, stocks, sluder, those guys that are just they're these upper echelon dudes, and then you know whole community of great artists that, yeah, one of our Humboldt heroes is he's a vet. He's quite good. Okay, yeah, jim loves him. He's on online a lot. Yeah, I'll think of his name here. Oh, ryan Jensen. Thank you Ryan. Hey, ryan, he's like Cool guy. Yeah, he just jumped into art a couple years ago and he's like I think he's like judging plein air competition. I don't know, and you know, steve, he just took off. Steve Taylor, steve Taylor, yeah, this stuff is really fun.
Speaker 1:Another guy that got into art late in life and just hit the ground making fabulous paintings. Yeah, like pretty cool, I got into podcasting. Kind of depressing as an artist. That's like tried all his life and then you're like wait, you worked at Caltrans and then just started crushing these awesome. How did you make it look easy? Now I feel bad. Yeah, my friend Will Butler, I make it look hard. My friend Will picked up yeah, you make it look really hard that my friend Will picked up. Yeah, you make it look really hard. That's not good. My friend Will just picked up a guitar in just two years. He's amazing. Yeah, picked up the golf clubs. He's just crushing it.
Speaker 1:You know, my theory is like they were, they were working on that for a long time In other ways yeah, there, yeah, there's. A foundation for their creative life was being built for years. So there was a lot of energy building and ready to be released. They didn't just say, well, you know, I think I might try this. That's fair. They're not just magically gifted. I hope not. Well, maybe there's that.
Speaker 1:Hate those guys. My girls did karate for years in McKinleyville Joyful Healer Church and then they went over and they all became great ballerinas. Okay, because the crossover body mechanics I can see that. Yeah, like the awareness of the balance and movement. It didn't hurt anyone doing it, yeah, or themselves. They never get distracted mid ballerina and just do a. Just stay focused, just chop. Yeah, you know it's easier than Well, I don't know how easy any of it is Okay, back to the shop.
Speaker 1:Real quick, yeah, do you ever meet John Wessa? Yeah, yeah, so John would probably come in. Yeah, and Michael Guerrero, he does a lot of that. What do they call their art? Is it lithographs? Serigraf, serigraf, I believe it's the layers. Yeah, yeah, friend, sarah star, oh, that rings a bell. What does she do? She's, uh, she does a lot of tile work, but she does some painting too. Okay, super good friends. Yeah, I know the name. Yeah, anyway, small community. So you, you came out.
Speaker 1:What I want to say above, I don't mean that in terms of you marketed out of the area and became a little bit more, uh, famous, if you will. I mean, yeah, get some notoriety. Yeah, it was all that like in hindsight, so, okay, so those guys dragged me out to go paint outdoors. All right, you're back painting, playing it. And that's when it clicked for me going. Oh wait, I have this thing I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:I wanted to paint the whole state because, you know, growing up in Southern California, family there, like you know, you know this you end up especially when you're young, those college years you're going, you're driving up and down the state a couple times a year, sometimes All the time Family stuff, you know, holidays, things like, and I'm driving the length of the coast. I'm always, you know, taking a different section, trying to Highway 1 and exploring, looking for waves and like just this whole state is so beautiful. I was like I want to paint the whole thing, but I couldn't do it until it clicked and I said, wow, those guys had me come out and in like three hours I went away with a painting. That was super awkward and weird, but it made me remember this can actually be a lot of fun. The paintings don't have to be masterpieces, they just need to be a record of that place at that time. And that's actually, once you let go of being perfect, you go. This is actually really fun.
Speaker 1:This is Torrey Pines, black Beach, and so then I'm like man I could do. I could do several of these in a day. I could go on a trip and paint 30 paintings on one trip. That would have taken me three years before I can do that in a week. So you went for it. Yeah, so around 2015, I did a trip the whole state from one end to the other. It took three weeks.
Speaker 1:You know, sleep in a van that fast? Yeah, you slept in a van down by the river. Yeah, government did. There's a reference there. For some of you, I have a painting of Government did. There's a reference there.
Speaker 1:For some of you, I have a painting of Moonstone Beach from. It was a commission, a couple that lives in a house up above Moonstone. They have this great view of the parking lot at Moonstone, with a little river going out to sea and cool view. So I painted the parking lot empty, except for my old yellow GMC Vandura, like I used to drive down there. And so I put my van on the parking lot and called the painting Down by the River.
Speaker 1:Oh nice, yeah, just because of that reference, joni and I got baptized in that river at 19. Okay, it was February. It was 40 degrees maybe, and windy and rainy. We had these big black robes. We looked like druids, right? What kind of cult ceremony is this? It was a great cult day that day we got baptized. No, van down by the river, but it was amazing. I was so glad to do that. We came up out of the water and approached a new life. Awesome, yeah, it was really good.
Speaker 1:So you went coast to coast. That's rad. I mean border to border, border to border, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Imperial Beach all the way up to Smith River or something. I don't think I made it to Imperial on that trip, but yeah, I've gone and painted, literally like you know, you had to park and walk to get to it, but the border fence, yeah, yeah, right down, yeah, you know, down on the river it's a. It's a. That's a strange scene because you're there, it's so weird, no-transcript, and it's kind of like huh. Then you look through the bars of the fence and there's like kites flying and cotton candy machines and they're having a party and you're like going. Man, that's weird, huh, did I? Maybe? Maybe I've made some wrong choices because it looks a lot more fun. I know they want to like, I know I want to be in that country, but it's like fun.
Speaker 1:It's a little jarring standing there painting. Was the bull ring still down there? Because back in the day, oh, that was the. That was the lineup that people used for, I think, serving the slow. The Tijuana Slough, yeah, right, right, I don't know. That's a whole world. There's a bullfighting ring back when I was a kid down there. They would think it's still there. I don't know that. Yeah, I don't know either.
Speaker 1:Imperial Beach pretty nondescript though. I mean it's got a pier. Yeah, did you go to Coronado once to paint and it was hot, yeah, and it's just flat and sandy and there's, how do you paint the Hotel Del? Everybody's painted the Hotel Del. It was Well, I thought it would be cool to paint a good painting of it, and I just couldn't find a place to be, yeah, and I got annoyed and I left. I just I said I'm not going back here. And then I've seen some great paintings of it though. Oh, it's magical, it's a cool old building to be in. Yeah, yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 1:I think I get greedy. I get greedy when I'm looking for a place to paint for him, because if I see that there's a cool building like that, I'm like, yeah, I want the building, yeah, but I also want the slope of the beach and I want the headland of, like, point Loma in the distance and I want it all. And if all I can get is the hotel. I'm like, no, it's not going to work. I got to. So what was the further south, painting Point Loma or Ocean Beach or On that trip? Yeah, pb, yeah, Mission Beach. I think that trip might've ended in La Jolla Okay, just right there in La Jolla, la Jolla's cool, just right there in La Jolla, la Jolla's cool, la Jolla, la Jolla. Yeah, I ended up in the ER that night. I don't know what happened. I think I maybe three weeks in the road eating gas station food. I don't know. Oh, is that the end of the line for you? But it was.
Speaker 1:Uh, there was a fundraiser for um Scripps instant, no, not Scripps. Um, uh, through San Diego state. There's a um cancer research, morris cancer research center, ucsd cancer, morris cancer center. They cancer morse cancer center, they do you know, research and treatment um cancer. This big fundraiser they do every year um, uh, the longboard legends and luau invitational or something. So they get some like legendary, you know, servers from back in the day and they do it at the beach like, yeah, loja, shores and companies will sponsor, you know, you pay and get it on a team and go cool in this contest and they raise a bunch of money but they usually every year they have a different artist do artwork for them and it's usually of scripts, some different view of scripts, and they auction them off and it's. I mean, they've they've got a track record that those paintings go for a lot of money. They don't. They don't let you split it, which is kind of a bummer, but it's sort of prestigious. The other artists that have done it in the past I really look up to a bunch of them. I was like this is kind of cool company to be in. So at the end of that trip I was bringing a painting down that I'd done for it and painted live at their VIP night and it was super fun.
Speaker 1:But all of a sudden I'm like I'm having this crazy. I feel like I'm being stabbed in the side of my stomach. Where's the bathroom? And I'm keeled over. No, I don't need the restroom, I just I'm having a hard time breathing because I feel like I'm being. I thought I had a something ruptured or something.
Speaker 1:You know, and one of the guys there, his wife, was a nurse and she's like she's like checking me out. She's like checking me out. She's like, well, I don't know, like it's, we should get you to the, you know. So we went to ER that night the Scripps Hospital, yeah and they checked. I was there for a couple hours and by the time that they were done, they just did a bunch of tests. They couldn't find anything. It was the tacos man. I've never felt anything like that and anyway, yeah, it was. I probably didn't take care of dehydration, maybe I wasn't all in one of them, yeah, and then we used to spend a lot of time there Blacks Beach, the nude beach up the way there, and Blacks is the place where you, where nude people shouldn't go nude Most people that choose to do that shouldn't but the waves are amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good spot. It's good. It's the only nature really down there, because you have to hike down to the beach, and Joni and I were down and I was down at La Jolla Shores. There was a blind surfing contest. Oh, cool, blind people, yeah, and it was so cool. And they, these guys from around the it was a world-class people from around the world, yeah, and it was like that's different. They, they would get them, you know, into the ocean and then they would ride away. It was just a trip, right, really fun, right and then learn to dive in the La Jolla Cove. Oh, that's got to be beautiful. It was cool man, the water down there is just. That's a pretty special place. Yeah, depending on the time of the year.
Speaker 1:And maybe one of the only positive things I did in high school besides playing on the bong team Johnny goes, you got a certified scuba. I go, yeah, I'm amazing, so it wasn't all a loss. Yeah, I love painting La Jolla. That's a. That's a fun place. It's special.
Speaker 1:So, rather than walk you all the way up to Smith River, did you go to Rincon or or steamer steamers and all that and probably some really remote stuff? Let's mention that. So big sir, I mean out the coast, like something that we wouldn't know about. That was, yeah, and I've seen a lot of it, but some spots that were magic, amazing, yeah, I mean, um, it's been fun, like I the you know, once I have a map where I fill in dots. You know, like I, literally on my site site there's a Google map with pins and you can click a pin and see the paintings of it and it's just a little bit up the whole state.
Speaker 1:But there's a couple of gaps. One of the gaps is probably my favorite gap because it's Vandenberg Air Force Base, oh right, and I was like I can't get out there. I don't know, nobody goes out there. And it turns out a guy that's a firefighter out there saw that I was trying to paint the whole state and he's like, hey, I see, you don't have any pins in Vandenberg. We got to fix that and he got me out there and I thought I'd have to be escorted by. I thought there was like security on these places, you know. But it turns out he just signed me in and they gave me a printout that said I could be there for the week, come and go, sweet, anytime had full range found.
Speaker 1:We ended up finding this little, this little road on the south end that goes toward Halama with a. There was a gate locked with a combo and I won't divulge how, but I acquired, through pretty surprisingly serendipitous means, the combo was attained and so, yeah, so we had access to go, like I mean me and a buddy of mine with our vans, a surf buddy of mine driving our vans down the coast over the train tracks on this little dirt road to a campsite like 10 feet from the sand, sweet, with nobody in sight when no one has gone before For miles. Well, someone else's camp there, because the guy that we had but just that's a rare bird right there being able to do that. And so I have like 15 paintings of Vandenberg that are not on my site because they're all sitting half finished in my studio while I'm trying to figure out how to gracefully complete this midlife crisis of mine that has had me not working hardly at all.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that. Tell us about your midlife crisis. I mean, I don't know if it's a midlife crisis. What are your top three takeaways from your midlife crisis? The fact is I'm 49.
Speaker 1:And so when I tell people like, oh, that sounds about right because you're 49 or you know, but no, because I was full speed ahead just doing this art thing, I had my head down and I wasn't seeing my wife. I wasn't seeing my kids, my family, the way I should. I was just trying to work and I was just trying to get away, really, from a lot of what wasn't comfortable. And what wasn't comfortable is that marriage wasn't working as it should. I wasn't dealing with things as I needed to, and my wife wanted counseling, and so she said she heard her thing when she said she's like I think we need counseling and in the past it had always kind of been like this threat, like if you don't get your act together, you need counseling I was like I knew I was kind of a train wreck but I thought she, you know, I thought she loved me anyway and that's right.
Speaker 1:It was this. I had this whole counseling is I had this comes with the light. I had this great like. It was like a cool country song, this romantic idea of like I could be this sloppy wreck and she's still, she's this angel, but she loves me. And how cool is that. But for her poetic, she's over there just suffocating and I'm like I'm taking off, I'm going to go paint, I'm doing the stuff. She's sucking it up, yeah, yeah. And I just wasn't seeing what was going on. So when she said we need counseling, she said because I need to figure out how to live with you. Wow, it wasn't how to. She wasn't trying to change me, thank you, she was trying, he's trying to live with me. And that made me kind of go well, what's what is going on there? And so I kind of did some self-reflection and I like it's funny because I mentioned that like that encounter with God at 21.
Speaker 1:And like we had just started the counseling, it wasn't really, we weren't deep in it, but this one night we were reading. We were reading through Genesis, where Jacob. You know Jacob has he's the one with Jacob's ladder he has the vision of the angels of God ascending and descending on this ladder from heaven and that was his first encounter with God. And later, way later, after he goes through a bunch of stuff and you know, crazy stuff, yeah, he has a wild life, but way later in life he goes back to that place and builds an altar there where he had that first encounter with God and I thought, gosh, I haven't really Like when I was 21,. Had that encounter, I was stoned. It was my 21st birthday. Had that encounter, I was stoned. It was my 21st birthday.
Speaker 1:We're sitting at a table out to eat live from New York pizza in McKinleyville which has burned down since then. Delicious Back in the day, oh yeah. And there was 12 of us there and I'm sitting there in the middle of the well, 12 and me and I'm sitting there in the middle of these guys, you apostles, this is like the last supper. Ha ha, ha, ha ha, wait, this is like the last supper, wait. And you know, I mean when you're stoned, that's not a fun thought. That was heavy.
Speaker 1:So I went home and I was like what is going on? I was like Jesus. So I pulled down a Bible and I'm looking at it and it's just the last page of Revelation had been torn out, but it was put on the first page of the book of Matthew. And I'm just looking at my name and go, matthew, and it was like huh, there was a presence in that name. Like it was like wow, and I'm like there's this. I don't have, I don't have words to explain this experience of this.
Speaker 1:But the next day, like anxieties were gone, okay, so what I did? Cause I felt like this, this is kind of like crazy and I was thinking this might not be okay. This might be that I'm losing my mind and I might be one of those stories At 21. People get super stoned and then they lose their mind and they think they're Jesus and next thing, you know, like they're walking around with a white robe. Did you hear what happened to so-and-so he's down in La Jolla? And I'm going, this might be my here's what happened to so-and-so moment and I went and sat in front of a mirror just to see if I looked as crazy as I felt, and I don't know how to say it, but it was just the peace of God was there. It was like this is okay, the person that I saw there, I was going, he's going to be okay, like this is. And, and I just didn't have I didn't know where to put that. I didn't know where to put that.
Speaker 1:So when we read this thing of Jacob going back to this place cause I'd been pretty discouraged with, with, with the church, with my faith, with all of it, cause it just seemed like I don't know, it just felt like going through emotions. Career too no, career was the only thing I had. I was like I was on fire with my career. I loved it. Marriage was kind of not yeah, yeah, marriage wasn't Firing on the cylinders, no, it wasn't working. And so I just said you know what she has? She's saying she wants to figure out how to live with me. I don't know what, I don't know what had just had given up on like trying to be good enough for anybody. I was like I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1:But that story, he went back to that place and I thought, well, I haven't been back to that place, I had that encounter. And I immediately left that place and tried to explain that encounter over here in the church, like you said, like in old wineskin, I was trying to explain it and rather than rest in it, rather than go back to that place, rather than say, okay, well, God, what are you doing, like, what is where are? I said, okay, well, I'll figure it out over here. And it was a great place to hide from what was really scary that direct being available and being like in the presence of God as not an idea, but as the maker, the other, the one that's not us, the one that is with us but isn't us, like that's a frightening thing. So I could hide over here in the church and this was kind of a call to go. You know what? Like he went back to the place where he first encountered. So I said I'll just, I don't got nothing to lose now Would you geographically do that?
Speaker 1:Or metaphorically? Metaphorically in the sense of I waited for everybody to go to bed that night and I went and sat in front of a mirror, just like at 21. Wow, cool. And I sat there and it was like everything, everything just unpacked, and it was like I don't know it. Just it was like so God showed up. I don't know if you're God showed up again you know, people get weirded out by Holy Spirit but it just felt like a flood. It just felt like a flood. It just felt like like I have never felt so alive and I knew I love it. I knew that, um, that like it was going to be all right, man, god was with me and he wasn't. He wasn't pouring down fire. He was like I love you, man, and you haven't loved yourself. I've loved you and you wouldn't love yourself. And I was like, whoa wait, like I didn't expect this. That's for me. Right now, I love it, yeah. So like everything kind of shifted around and so I knew you know, amy and I we've been working through a bunch of stuff and it's been awesome. It's been the best midlife crisis I've ever had. Nice, I totally recommend it. No, ferraris, no, like I got a lot of the lame behavior done out before the midlife crisis and this one, this one's been good. It's been, yeah, just feels like coming home. Well said, I love it.
Speaker 1:I wonder, as you're speaking, I wonder how many people have encounters with the living God and then go whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa and they deny it. Or they do some LSD or smoke some weed or go pursue a thing or a pleasure and go. That wasn't real and it scares them, or they're just uncomfortable and I want to deny this encounter I had at Burning man or in the desert or at Moonstone or you know, at home in bed, and it's like and it was God, it is God, still is God, and yet I want to kind of shy away from that because it doesn't fit into my framework of rational Western theology. And we almost by trying to make God so big that no, no, no, we can't hear from him, we almost make God too small Because we're like trying to say, like we're trying to like spell out, like I don't know, like we are here, he is like I don't know. Yeah, like we are here, he is like I am, that I am like present, like there's, it's just God is just such a beautiful presence. Like it's I don't know. We, we, we have a lot of ideas that minimize him by trying to maximize them, but I don't think they, I don't know there's so much of ideas that minimize him by trying to maximize him, but I don't think they. I don't know. There's so much more mystery than I think. We have limited narrative and we exercise it all the time.
Speaker 1:One thing I've discovered is this notion of a Jesus walk, and that is go to Patrick's Point, sumeg Park, take a half day and go for a hike and just get quiet. Imagine getting off the device folks, it's really weird. It was locked in the Subaru, came back, took a nap, had lunch, read the Word. It was amazing. That's awesome. Some interesting stuff. And the first thing and I think I shared this with you, the first thing I saw the first Jesus walk within 30 seconds.
Speaker 1:I looked offshore, at Patrick's point, and there's a bald eagle. I mean, you never see bald eagles? No, no, never, but hardly. Yeah, it's a special thing. I'm looking and I'm going gosh, where's my camera? Oh, shucks, it's in the car. Oh gosh, joni, I saw bald eagles so cool.
Speaker 1:Did you get a photo? Yeah, in my head I still see it. Can you see it? I see it. Yeah, I just think we fail. Yeah, we tend to fail at being spiritual, and I don't think it's that hard. You get quiet, right, let's start there. I like it. Turn off the devices. I like it. Shut this and slow down and center it, and I think it scares the bejeebers out of most people. Yeah, just listen. Yeah, imagine that and go do it quietly somewhere, right? Hey, what's your legacy? What do you want to see happen? How are we going to remember you?
Speaker 1:What's on the tombstone is? Is there some artwork on your tombstone? You're the one guy that could have some art, I guess. Well, I don't know, it reminds me of, like, you know, putting art on a surfboard. Right, I like I did that. Some of those little laminates that I did I put. I had some artwork on some of my boards and I go, this is the worst, really didn't like it. Like, just, even if I liked it, I'm like paddling out in the art and I'm looking at this like abomination. This is like thou shalt have no graven image. And here it is Like, what can this do? Like I would love art, but like, yeah, you know, you can kind of bring these visions into this place, but to try to bring like art about, you know, this beautiful ocean and its movement into the ocean itself, it's just falls flat and it was just counterintuitive. Yeah, so I don't know, tombstone should just be like concrete and moss.
Speaker 1:What are your favorite beaches locally, by the way? Oh, they're all my children, I don't know. Yeah, so probably probably camel is fun. Yeah, that whole other idea. Yeah, yeah, that's always magical there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've become jaded in my older years now, because you know, in the 90s you do like even the. I mean, you know it's like hate, I hate the way this sounds, but just hit me, it is. You can't even know it's like. I hate the way this sounds, but it just hit me, it is. You can't even park when it's good anymore. Right, you're just, and that didn't used to be like that. Yeah, even up, especially up here, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I don't know, but, yeah, I, you know, lately I just, I like you know small, small days, small ocean, terrible waves, but if I'm alone it's easy, I like it easy. This is not a great place to like easy waves. No, so I don't surf much these days, that's okay. Yeah, seems like Crescent City would be the what's it called Long Beach, crescent Beach, south Beach. Yeah, yeah, they have a lot of Beach. Yeah, yeah, they would have a little small, that's fun. Yeah, we usually get out. We go up there every summer, get a couple days in with the kids, because it's where the kids like to get in the water. Yeah, and that's always fun.
Speaker 1:Did you ever know Ren Null, the surf shop guy? Yeah, or his dad? I did artwork for them, for their. They had a little longboard contest for years. Right, they stopped it. I think they might have done it again. I'm not, I don't recall. Maybe I think he sold the shop. Yeah, yeah, I got to do art for them.
Speaker 1:Did you ever meet Greg the old man? I did. I met him in San Diego. Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 1:It was a shortboard show and it was super awkward. Like I brought this mural that I did for this shaper down in Orange County and they were doing the Sacred Craft, the surfboard trade show and I showed it to the guy, Scott Bass, that runs that and he was like dude because it was like all about the act of creation of a surfboard. And I was like dude, he has this show called Sacred Craft and this piece of art looks like it could be a poster for that show. So he's like dude, that's rad, just bring it down and I'll find a place for it. So I was like cool, I've got an entry into this show, this will be fun. So he set me up like right outside the restrooms. I'm like, well, I don't care, it's a spot, I'm meeting people, it was a super fun show.
Speaker 1:And Greg comes out and I was like that's Greg Knoll, yeah, and he's walking, because I was like facing the exit and I'm like man, I just want to shake your hand and he's like, oh, awkward, oh, and he's already weird. And it's like the. For those that don't know, greg Knoll was one of the first guys to conquer some big waves. Yeah, he's a pioneer. He's a legend, pioneer, legend, neat guy and now have friends in Gasky that know him. He's a fisherman, kind of a loner, has a boat and he just he goes to shows and I'm sure that's how he makes money. He gets paid to come and sign autographs and shake wet hands. It was awkward, that was like 2008. That was a ways back.
Speaker 1:But so as we go, I always ask two questions Number and I. Sometimes I hit Bethany with this right out of the gate. So I'll just wait on you. Number one, who are you? And number two, what do you want? You got time to think about it. I'll kill a minute with my reusable bottle. What was the question? When I came by for lunch and you're like, what's your three words of advice? Top three takeaways, top three takeaways from like your entire life. Yeah so, and I was like, who asked these questions? You know, no one really knows this, so I'll just look at Nick and say so.
Speaker 1:In my office, scott Hammond State Farm, downtown Eureka, which I never, ever mentioned on the podcast, are you plugging with your bottle? We have a lot of guests over the last 10 years, just rando friends, family, clients and I don't hit strangers too hard with that and we'll be gathered around for a stand-up meeting. And so, hey, how are you doing, matt? What's your top three takeaways in life? Go ahead, tell us what they are.
Speaker 1:And you know it's funny, a lot of people who are very shy will just kind of come in and nail it, just sling, just slay it, and other people that are just big mouths like me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah people, yeah, and it just throws them. They kind of well, can I pass? I go. No, okay, love people, love God, and reuse and recycle, I get something. They'll throw out something, Right, right. So I don't remember your top three takeovers. I think they were good though. I think it was like, yeah, love people, love God, and don't dip your brush in your beer for your painting. Yeah, that was. Yeah, it was good, I liked that. Yeah, great, I mean, you know it was seeing people like, seeing people being present Like you cannot. That's my, that's my.
Speaker 1:When you get down to what a relationship is between two people, it can be. We can see people as others or we can see people as kind of I don't want to say objects in the sense of like, objectification, but like, not as a mystery, but as a set of known quantities of what like. Here's what they represent, here's what, here's the pluses, minuses, here's what I can gain. And all this transactional, the other side of the church.
Speaker 1:Jim Welder says that transactional brain versus connection and and eye contact and the gaze Relational is allowing a person to be a mystery where all you can do is say I'd like to get to know you, sure, and as soon as you say I know you, you all, you only know these constructs that you have or that I've let you have. You have to let, yeah, you have to let the other be a mystery. And so I relate that with with this, like coming back into the presence of God, just realizing like all my life I called it a relationship, but it was a relationship built around an idea of a relationship. Ah, instead of letting God truly be other, a mystery that I'm, I can put myself here and say here I am, but who you are, it's not up to what I understand and realizing, once you kind of like step into that and this is this, I mean, you know, we have like what Good Friday, easter week and all that right, like sure, that is the.
Speaker 1:I don't know if people get this, but like the whole gospel idea going to step into the presence of God. We have this thing where we're like that's a frightening thing. I always was, like, felt like I'm, I can't, I'm not, so that's all the. You know the cross, this whole thing. We have all this religiosity, ideas about what it is, and we have scripture and there's so much written, there's so much about it. It's, it's, it's okay, he's done, like god did something to say that that door is open.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you don't have to be good, good enough, you don't gotta straighten anything out. Your wife can say I gotta figure out how to live with you. You're a train wreck. And you say, well, I don't have to like figure this out first, right, just go and say God, who are you and who am I and what do we do, and that door is open, going gosh. When you just let the other be the other, and not all your ideas, then you can know God and you can also know others. Like that's the template for every relationship. And if all your relationships are based on like I've got them figured out and my wife, this is what she can do for me and this is what everybody, well, your relationship with God's gonna look like that too and you're just gonna have a relationship with a bunch of ideas. But if you say I don't know you, but I'd love to get to know you, that's when it can be a beautiful. Everything opens up to a really beautiful place. So Super well said.
Speaker 1:That was my attempt when I stepped into your office. Yeah, and don't dip your paintbrush in your beer, I'll share something with you and we'll go. Okay, on my Jesus walk last time. I'm an okay writer, I have a book and whatever, but I got a poem that'll be a song and it's called A Good Heart Goes a Long Way. I think you got a great heart. Thanks for being here. Thanks, scott. All right, have a great day. Thanks, man.