Matt Hebert
Matt is an artist and youth ministry director for Youth for Christ in St. Cloud, and has long been inspired by the relationship between creativity and connection.
Artist’s statement:
I’m interested in common things reconsidered, reorganized, reconciled by raw daylight. Bread, wine, buildings, landscapes, creatures, names, stories. I also like places of intersection... integration... places of overlap... where ideas, essence, and pavement converge in real time and space. Here’s my favorite such convergence: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us... (John 1:14).
The trouble of it is... the painting studio can be a scary place to try out such heady impressions of the universe. Bad ideas and strained skills quickly get exposed there, producing something akin to that vulnerable feeling you get in dreams where you wander crowded school cafeterias, clutching a lonely lunch tray, searching in vain for a place to sit down. Somehow, though, the fear and insecurity of the moment give way to an impulse, an instinct, too pesky to be outmatched by trepidation, and you eventually snatch a seat at The Table. An idea takes root. A vision emerges. And there, mingling in the company of interesting strangers who soon become friends... you eat... together. You discover a new story in the husk of the old, as one adventure gives way to the next.
This is my life... and my life in the studio. For no good art, and no good stories, come without risk.