Archive (Page 2) • More Like a Spoon Than a Fork • Buttondown

November 21, 2023

I'm sorry it's been ages since I wrote one of these. A combination of travel and not having much to say sort of curtailed things a little. I will say that I...

Double is triple

October 19, 2023

My plan, this year, with Tall Poppy Press, was to publish four books spaced out over the year. One in February, one in June, one in September and the last in...

October 15, 2023

Over the last few months I've been feeling that I want to pursue some exhibitions again. For a few reasons, this year I was relatively quiet with exhibiting...

Studio update: September

September 30, 2023

I know I've been a little inconsistent here, I've been mega busy with my day job and am currently on a trip in Vietnam which meant I had to spend a bunch of...

You can't have it all

September 19, 2023

Recently, I've been day dreaming about buying a retail shop and having a bookstore for Tall Poppy Press, a little studio and then a space for food/drink....

September 5, 2023

When I work a book fair, I'm working retail. At a book fair, I have a table, I set up and display the books and posters, etc I have for sale and then as...

What is sustainable?

August 29, 2023

I don't mean what does the word mean, I mean what ACTIONS and LIVES are sustainable. In my day job, I run a program for University students about...

August 23, 2023

While, in general, I roll my eyes when someone talks about the pandemic, I wanted to start this email with the qualifier that the change I'm writing about...

Studio Update: July/August

Hello everyone, It's going to be a hectic few months for me so I wanted to give a bit of a studio update a cheeky apology for likely being a bit absent over...

A haven or a prison?

Over the last five years I've spent a lot of time at wildlife sanctuaries of various descriptions, often visiting expressly to photograph an animal I don't...

Art/Money #3 - am/am not

Apologies up front - this is a rambly one and sort of covers a lot of ground without doing very much. As an artist, if you want to make a living, you can...

Art/Money #2 - Audience monopolies

Before we dive into art and money #2, I wanted to share three points of context: When I started this newsletter, there was a pervasive sense that Instagram...

Twenty five dollars

of the financial year here in Australia, which is a time a lot of people dread, find boring or forget about, but I really like. It's an odd thing, I...

Studio update: June

This is the second email I'm sending about what I'm working on. I don't know if this is interesting - though a few folks did get back to me after the first...

Everything has its season

Everything has its season is something I say a lot, to me it means acknowledging that there's a time for effort, a time for rest, a time for beginnings and a...

Grabbing the bull by the horns

A few months ago I had 4 weeks off from work and spent that time making new art and doing publishing things. Since that time something I've been wondering is...

There's a gallery I visit once a month or so near where I live and work. I like the guys that run it and like their shows and sense of play with the work...

Metrics/Measures

I don't quite know if everyone is like me in this way, so apologies if it's a little weird. Something that I find very motivating and de-stressing is knowing...

Nature doesn't move in straight lines and neither do I

At some point while I was in University I decided that I wanted to get into growing food. I really cannot remember exactly why, but I think I was reading a...

Studio Update: May

I wanted to make these a monthly thing as I hope updating people about what I'm working on is interesting. I always find the behind the scenes look at other...

I've become pretty interested in posters recently. I think I'm drawn to the way they are both very creative and very commercial. The more I do things as a...

So I don't really drink caffeine. Not out of any particular health ideals, but just because most things with caffeine in them are bitter (coffee, tea) or...

Regional Language

Two experiences recently sort of expanded my mind a little in regards to how I think about what my influences are in terms of art making. The first was when...

The playful insanity of art

Something I often think about when I'm out making art is what on earth some random hiker or traveller would make of what I'm doing. This picture is from a...

Studio Update: March

Hello everyone, I've been wanting to try a studio update once a month for a while now, but I kept forgetting. For a while I thought it'd be fun to do it as a...

Perfect practice

When I was in school I was really into music. Mainly listening though I went through times where I played a lot too. When I first started playing guitar I...

I think that we, generally, know a lot more than we realise. Often little nuggets of wisdom are buried deep, things we know but aren't conscious of. One...

The right kind of busy

As I was walking to the supermarket yesterday I started wondering to myself 'Matt, why do you enjoy things that are slightly inconvenient?'. The supermarket...

The value of play

I think I've previously written that one of my less well known time sinks is playing video games. A lot of people at age 33 have grown out of video games and...

February 21, 2023

So I have a confession to make: I often enjoy some business-adjacent self-help-light content. There's a ton of crap in this area, but there's also some very...

Two weeks, Ten things

February 15, 2023

Recently, I spent two weeks in hospital. It was not planned or expected at all. One day I developed a screaming headache that wouldn't go away, no drugs or...

No shortcuts, but lots of deviations

January 18, 2023

When I made my second zine I included a little bit of text. The zine was a collection of photographs from Kosciusko National Park, a place I really enjoyed...

Summer is for rest

January 11, 2023

Something I've come to accept over the last 3-4 years is that summer is, for me, a time of rest. Previously, summer was about adventure. For most of my adult...

Looking Forward

January 5, 2023

During COVID I learned how much of my life is motivated by what's 3-6 months ahead of me. Melbourne's long lockdowns (one of the world's longest at 277 days)...

December 28, 2022

Currently it seems many places are having some extreme weather. Actually, something my girlfriend mentioned earlier this year as that Australia appears to be...

December 22, 2022

One of the things I tried in 2022 was to start an art project about the Ocean. The Ocean is a really fascinating thing. In a lot of ways, water defines Earth...

Autonomy is magic

December 13, 2022

I'm sure I'm not the only one who, from time to time, finds themselves doing some life or values questionnaire. Sometimes these come mandated from my job (as...

December 7, 2022

No one has ever accused me of being fashionable, for very good reason. I think my Mum and girlfriend have a secret chat where they share photos of me in...

The 24 Hour Milo

November 30, 2022

Milo is a type of chocolate powder that you can add to milk/water to make a hot chocolate. It’s malted and has a very particular flavour. It’s popular here...

Keep on keeping on

November 23, 2022

So, I was supposed to be sharing that I'd been out bush and made lots of photos and wow what a great time. But, due to the floods, I was unable to head out...

Publishing as business

November 17, 2022

Hello everyone, I'm in the bush this week and I hope I'm happily snapping photos while you read this. If you're new here, welcome! I've been prompted by a...

Nice images and moral imperatives

November 9, 2022

So - I did not get out to the bush the last week. For those not in Australia, we've had record breaking rainfall and huge floods. While the area I was...

Can rejection be fun?

November 2, 2022

Hello all, I am in the middle of nowhere this week, documenting wildlife surveys in a big property. It is (I hope) fun and important work. It is (I hope)...

Anti-elite art vernacular (or, the most specific topic I've ever written 1000 words on)

October 26, 2022

One of the really particular quirks of education in Australia is that, around the age of 14-16, a lot of schools assign their classes Of Mice and Men, the...

October 19, 2022

I love food and am having a quiet week. Food consistently makes me happy. I love cooking, preparing, shopping, eating, enjoying. Here are a list of some...

A cat has nine lives - how many do we have?

October 12, 2022

Something I've written a bit about is here before is how my life is split between my day job in Education and my life as an artist. For many years, it's felt...

What is understanding?

October 5, 2022

On the weekend just past, I went to a stable and visited some horses. A friend's sister has two horses and I wanted to photograph them because I'm trying to...

September 28, 2022

Something a bit odd about me is that I don't really celebrate my birthday. When I was 16 I woke up thinking 'this will be a great day, everyone's going to be...

Australia: the land of fences

September 20, 2022

I'm obsessed with fencing and fences right now. I think that they are the most mundane expressions of a sense of inclusion, exclusion and control that most...

Getting older is getting easier

September 14, 2022

When I was a teacher, there was a segment of my colleagues who would often lament that working with teenagers made them feel old. Responding to the warp...