Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Magruder.
Hi Matthew, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
This question is so deceptively simple yet immensely complex to answer. Art has always been prominent in my life. That art and creativity has taken on vastly different manifestations over the years. Drawing and Lego as a child. I painted for many years during undergrad (where I studied Architecture) and after college. Lots of vibrant colors and motion in that work. Then I became enamored with a current mainstay, photography. My photographic pursuit started by way of a very active love of rock climbing and in turn, photographing my climbing friends and adventures.
Then the photography took over my time and passion and my work centered around historic photographic process–Platinum/Palladium, cyanotypes, wet plate collodion (tintypes), etc. –most of which I still utilize currently.
I’ve also been working as an Art Director and Graphic Designer for nearly 20 years now. This work includes magazines, marketing, whole-company branding, and book layout.
Much of my current work is in Book Arts mixed with photography, letterpress, and printmaking. The book as an artistic medium has given me a unique ability to pull together numerous art forms that I love and to create coherent and contained “series.”
It also embodies my love of working with my hands and creating in that overlap where craft and art meet.
Teaching has also become more and more of a prominent role in my artistic process. I find it profoundly important to share what I know with others and help them grow in their art. This is a feedback cascade that I’ve come to cherish so deeply.
The subhead on my website simply reads, “I like to make things” which had proven more and more true the older I get and the more active I am in my art and creativity. Perhaps I should amend it to read, “I like to make things and share how to make them.”
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has actually been an incredibly UNsmooth road to travel and continues to be. But with that said, I am immensely grateful to be on my bumpy road and continuing down its inherently unique path. Some of the challenges are the ones so many other artists experience; numerous MFA rejection letters, Artist Residency dear john emails, Exhibit denials, Award Non-winner messages, etc. As a younger man, these were creatively traumatizing, which might sound melodramatic but most artists will likely resonate especially early on in our road.
I’ve come to greatly appreciate those bumps though as I’ve come farther along on my road. I was rejected from numerous MFA programs many years ago but that lead to me getting a Graduate Degree in Counseling and started me down the road to a current love and passion as a Psychotherapist (I see just a small handful of clients). Had those rejection letters not come in, I very well might now have pursued this aspect of my road.
Another likely universal struggle I share with others is around the inherent worthiness of our work that we create. Those common questions of:
“Who even cares to see my work?”
“Why should I bother to create?”
“What I make is just not good enough or different enough or unique enough?”
Art and creativity can so often look like it’s just a drain on resources through the lens of our culture and society. But I’ve come to realize the older I get that as Artists and Creatives, we have an obligation to speak the language of our work as we are the only ones fluent in it. We’re the only ones that can paint what we’re called to paint or capture the photograph that we feel deserves capturing or write the book that we feel is worth the pages or craft the song that we hear inside.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
What sets me apart is that it’s me and my work, or at least my current attempt at making my work. I’m most proud of being willing to keep at it over all these years at being an artist and having that be a constant, growing, and fruitful aspect of my life.
When it comes to work, I’m probably most proud of my Book Arts work as referenced above that it has been an area of collaboration between different parts of my creative pursuits.
Book Arts work:
https://www.matthewmagruder.com
I’m also immensely proud of a recent piece I installed at the Austin City Hall as part of the Peoples Gallery Show 2022 called Tiny Wars. It’s a giant display of 60+ tintype photographs I made of my childhood (and my friend’s childhood) Star Wars toys. It was a long series I worked on for a year or so and am super excited that it’s out there for others to see and enjoy. The series was a wonderful and lighthearted way for me to artistically “play with my toys” as a 40+year old.
https://photography-mlm.com/tiny-wars
I’m also quite proud of a series I worked on over the course of five years called Windows. It is a series of multi-plate assemblages of 8×10 and 11×14 Wet Plate Collodion (tintype) images. These vary in size from 4 pieces 16x20in up to a 42 piece 2x12ft 360º panorama and countless sizes inbetween. The series was a labor of love with an emphasis on the labor as many of the assemblages took multiple days to create.
It’s a snapshot of the city of Austin during that five years span, a snapshot that has changed immensely since then but a series I’m very proud to have created.
https://photography-mlm.com/windows
One final series I’ll mention is my Relationship Project series of 11×14 Tintype photographs. One of the many hats I wear is a Psychotherapist and in particular, I do a good bit of Couples Counseling. In that work, and in life in general, I’ve come to really love and appreciate the immense diversity in the relationships people have. In particular, the primary intimate relationships we have with our partners, husbands, wives, etc. This series is a snapshot of a couple and how they see themselves and in turn how I see them in the process of working with them to create their image. You can see in the series that it manifests equally as diversely. Some of the images are layered with props and meaning while others are seemingly simple. I’ve come to cherish this ongoing series and hope to grow it in the future.
https://photography-mlm.com/relationship-project
I’d circle back that really the thing I’m most proud of though is that I continue to try and create my work as I move through life and hope that I can say the same thing in 40 more years.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
First off, reach out to me through my website, email, IG, etc. I love to talk creativity, psychology, art, science, craft, etc. Much of my work is alone but I also love to collaborate and learn from others (see Relationship Project mentioned previously). As mentioned previously, I teach and love to share the processes I work in and so that’s a great way to connect with me. Lastly and likely the most obvious, buy some work is an immense support to me as an artist. More than anything, I love to share my work with others and sales obviously accomplish that and help me to create more.
More than that obviously self-focused answer though is that I’d encourage you to buy the art of the artists you love or support them in whatever way you can.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.matthewmagruder.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kahgruder/
- Other: https://photography-mlm.com/home
