Ep. 713 - Wildlife in Bronze: The Art of Walter Matia
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, Katie Burke. And today on this show, I have a special guest. I have Walter Matia.
Katie Burke:He is a sculpturist. I guess you would say that you are a how I mean, in French, it's is that how you say it? But we would say wildlife sculpturist over now, I guess, is what we would say. What would you say?
Walter Matia:Well, I mean, I'm an animal sculptor. Okay. And I'm out of the tradition of the French Amelier. Which were a group of people basically back in the eighteen forties led by a man named Antoine Louis Berry Mhmm. Who was the first guy to actually use animals as a primary subject, not animals as sort of an add on to a larger landscape or a hunt scene or whatever.
Walter Matia:Mhmm. It was animals as animals, and sort of that's a tradition I'm out of.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I I was I was an art history major, so I when I saw when I was reading about you and everything, I was like, oh, yeah. I forgot about this. Like, it's been so long that I've I've forgotten about. Like, I I never even thought to, like, connect you to that.
Katie Burke:But, yeah, that was interesting to go back, and then I fell down a rabbit hole looking at everybody's stuff, which was fun. But alright. So, Walter, let's I'm really excited to have you on. I love your work, but I wanna before we get into that, let's go all the way back to beginning. So you grew up in Ohio.
Katie Burke:Correct?
Walter Matia:Yes. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.
Katie Burke:Yep. And then so what was those early years like for you in Ohio?
Walter Matia:Well, I mean, early years are early years. Yeah. I I had a I did grow up in Cleveland, which had a great series of museums, both a terrific art museum, a terrific natural history museum. And I had a mother who was very interested in getting this the heck out of the house. Yep.
Walter Matia:And I spent much of my youth, particularly in the winters that were pretty bleak in Cleveland, at the different museums, either in drawing classes or just fiddling around looking at stuff. The the large if it was sort of the seminal moment of my career in the arts actually happened when was about 14 years old when I was sort of sent down to the museum having well, my mother came downstairs, and there were, like, 16 dead muskrats in the basement next to the laundry. And she said enough was enough, and she called the director of the museum at the time, a man named William Shealy, who was a terrific animal painter, and basically said, Bill, I'm bringing him down. He's now your problem. And I I pretty much spent all my weekends and summers from through high school and through college and for a year or so after college working in the museum in their exhibits department where I met a man named Larry Izzard who was a terrific sculptor.
Walter Matia:We became very, very close friends up until his death in 2006 or so. And he sort of hooked me on sculpture.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:So that's the the short review.
Katie Burke:Yeah. That's funny because, yeah, I always was very I mean, obviously, I'm I love museums. I'm a museum curator, and I love to go my mom would take us. We would we would when I was a kid, I grew up in DU and we would go to national convention for our, like, family vacation every year, and she would have to entertain us while dad was in, like, meetings. So we would go to I got to go to so many museums as a kid, and I always loved like, I just had an affinity for them, just the idea of collecting everything.
Katie Burke:But it never occurred to me that you could work there until I was older Yeah. Until, like, actually into college because I I was an art major, and then I went into art history, and I thought, oh, I don't I didn't wanna teach, and I didn't know what else I could do with it, but I loved art history, and and finally somebody was like, oh, you could work in a museum, and I was like, that's a thing? I was like, so And then I started, like, going to the university, like, museum and, you know, just basically begged to hang out there for free and let them and, like, do whatever they would let me do, but you got to do it so young. That's pretty special. Not many people get to start I feel like most of us don't start kind of doing our I'm guessing they didn't pay you because most museums didn't pay much.
Walter Matia:That would be a bad guess.
Katie Burke:They paid you?
Walter Matia:Well, you know, I started out down there in their young scientists program, which you did not get paid. But by the time I was 16, or 17, I don't remember, we I was actually doing real jobs in the summer. I mean, they were hard jobs.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:I mean, you know, I didn't get paid much, but that didn't matter. I mean, I've been doing it for free, be honest with you.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Well, most of us do do it for free, Walter.
Walter Matia:But this was a this was a different time. I'm a lot older than you. Yeah. I think.
Katie Burke:Yeah. You think you're the same age as my dad. Yeah. And yeah. But I just yeah.
Katie Burke:I was like, oh, I do it for free, and then eventually, you know, I I got I started to get paid after some time. But, yeah, you got to do it so young. And so at in that time, I mean, you're seeing art and you're seeing, you know, like natural history objects is what we call them, but, you know, artifacts and stuff. Are you interested in art at the same time? Are you more interested into the biology side of it, or is it kind of equal?
Walter Matia:So I did go to college. I went to a place called Williams College of Massachusetts, and I have a degree in biology and a degree in art design. Right. And the art history or the art design major at Williams College was largely art history. Okay.
Walter Matia:So I would say what I have is a degree in art history more than art design. But, no, I was always interested in both. I mean, in Cleveland, the the Natural History Museum and the Art Museum are right across the street from
Katie Burke:New really nice museums. Yeah.
Walter Matia:And so, you know, there was just sort of a lot of, you know, a lot of lunches were spent in the art museum. You know, a lot of days were spent looking at things. Some of the most fun things that we got that I got to do was they would send me over there to to a curator would get a Dutch still life in. Mhmm. And they wouldn't have any idea what the animals were in the still life.
Walter Matia:And so they'd send me over there and said, you know, go tell them what that is. You know? Well, that's a bullfinch, and that's this, and that's that, and that's this. And these have these symbolisms in different European art. And, you know, that was just fun.
Katie Burke:Yeah. That is fun.
Walter Matia:So I got to use all of it was the point. It was fun.
Katie Burke:Okay. So and I'm guessing you were pretty outdoorsy too as a kid. Right? Like, were outside and doing more things.
Walter Matia:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, most kids were. There were no cell phones.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. Yeah. But there were books. My sister this I was pre cell phones as kids, and my sister read a lot of books.
Katie Burke:She didn't go outside that much, so there is another option.
Walter Matia:I didn't I did not read a lot of books. In fact, I'm not sure I read a book all through high school, but I but the pictures were in English. And I had a huge collection of field guides.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Okay.
Walter Matia:And so I spent hours and hours in the you know, when it was dark looking through field guides and looking through books of paintings of the animals. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm I'm I'm pretty literate. You know?
Katie Burke:So you were actively trying to learn all these animals, I'm guessing, since you're
Walter Matia:Oh, yeah.
Katie Burke:Looking at field guides. Yeah. Because that's basically what you're you're doing. I mean, for the most part is learning the difference.
Walter Matia:Well, I mean, I I don't know who said it, but but but, basically, you know, knowing the name is the entry point to just about everything in natural history. Okay. And, you know, and so I I did in fact want to know the name of everything I was looking at. Yeah. And that include plants, fossils, rocks, you know, just a long to know, and I still do.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Were you good at it, like, remembering those names? Because some people my kid well, I have one kid who can remember, like, everything, but then I have other, like, me, One that's like me that can't remember.
Walter Matia:I would have said until about four years ago, yeah, I remembered everything I ever saw. Yeah. Now it's getting a little fuzzier.
Katie Burke:Like, you made it a long time.
Walter Matia:No. I mean, part probably probably learning the names of things is a really good way of slowing yourself down enough when you're outside Mhmm. To really observe what you're looking at. Mhmm. You know, we in plants, we historically used to to use keys.
Walter Matia:I mean, you know, kids now, you know, it's not like a cranky old guy, but, you know, kids point their photo their their telephone at a plant. They they snap a picture, and iNature tells them what they're looking at.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:Well, they remember that for about forty three seconds, if that. When you're told something, it doesn't register the same way as if you actually looked it up, figured it out. Yeah. And, you know, I'm not saying it's better or worse. I'm just saying that that my way of having to learn things the way I did left me with a much better memory for what they actually were.
Katie Burke:Right.
Walter Matia:You know? And then, you know, so I I, you know, I went on from museum work to work for twelve years for the Nature Conservancy.
Katie Burke:I was I'm getting there.
Walter Matia:So, I mean, it it it chain I mean, it it it's been a continuum, shall we say?
Katie Burke:Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, I I find it like, for me, I learn things with, like, when it comes to the outdoors and stuff when when I it's like with I'm with my dad or something, and we talk about like, it's like that interaction with another person helps me remember it. Because Mhmm. My husband always makes money.
Katie Burke:He's not from I'm from the middle of nowhere, and he's not from down here. And he always will, like, point to, like, crops and stuff and ask me what what it is, and he's always like, how do you know? I'm like, I don't know. I just know. Like and I'm sure it's because I just was with I learn I just listened to people talk about it over and over and over again Yeah.
Katie Burke:Until it's just in there. And but, yeah, it it depends on I do see that, and I see that with my kids too. Like and and it depends on the kid. Like, my one kid, like Mhmm. Remembers everything.
Katie Burke:She's just if she's interested in it, she knows about it. Like Mhmm. And that means a lot. But, yeah, it's
Walter Matia:Yeah.
Katie Burke:It's interesting because growing up, I grew up outdoorsy and also very into art. I was always an artsy kid. I loved to draw and paint and took art lessons for many years, but also, like, hunted and fished and all that stuff as a kid. But, like, I never you kind of married you kinda kept them together, whereas I I kind of kept them separate. Like, they were two different interests that didn't necessarily yeah, I didn't overlap.
Katie Burke:It was almost like two different parts of myself, and you kind of kept it all together, which is really interesting, and you made it work for you. I mean, obviously, you you went to the you were at that museum where you got to do a lot of stuff and you got to do taxidermy, is a big part I think for what you do later, and I'd I'd like to hear more about how that influenced you as a sculptor. But Mhmm. And then you go to the nature conservancy right after college. So What?
Katie Burke:Yeah. You had, like, you kind of always they kind of always were weaving back and forth, like, as the same thing, which is really is interesting. Probably the better way of doing it. But, yeah, like, I always kept them very separate until now.
Walter Matia:Yeah. It's it's it's both. I mean, I still keep them both. Mhmm. You know, I I I I did go to work for an organization called The Nature Conservancy, and I worked there for I think it was eleven or twelve years.
Walter Matia:I had five or six different jobs while I was there, and and each one of them was both different and cumulative. I I started out in sort of research on freshwater mussels of the Tennessee River drainage. And then I went from there, and I was sent out to Washington State to run something called one of their natural heritage programs, which was an endangered species plant community and endangered plant inventory.
Katie Burke:Okay.
Walter Matia:And I did that for a couple of years. And then I came back to the headquarters in DC where I was assigned to their stewardship department for their land management division. Okay. And I eventually ran that for five or six years, which was the greatest job in the world. I mean, I I got to travel all over the country visiting the the thousand or so properties that the Nature Conservancy owned at the time.
Walter Matia:But the important part of it was that I got to see the country through the eyes of really, really good field biologists. Yeah. You know? So you'd spend you'd spend a half a day or so in the office doing budgets and plans and, you know, fundraising strategy. Yep.
Walter Matia:And then you'd get out on the land for a couple of days. And these people really knew stuff. So that that, you know, knowing the name of something is cool. Yeah. Knowing why it's there is really interesting.
Katie Burke:And, yeah, why
Walter Matia:Knowing how to knowing how to keep it there, that's like the holy grail of conservation.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:And and so I I, you know, I got to see all portions of it, and it was terrific. I mean, it's a wonderful wonderful job, you know, so naturally I quit to do something else.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I mean, it is. Yeah. But you're also at that time, aren't you so you are so when do you switch into sculpting? Because, like, through that because you're not always as you don't start out.
Katie Burke:I mean, you did you did did you do more like printmaking and etching and stuff in school? Did you do you didn't do sculpting?
Walter Matia:I was an yeah. I was I was an intaglio printmaker in college, but Yeah. But that's, you know, that's sort of immaterial. That that was it was a I mean, it was a wonderful well, I I guess, in fact, it wasn't quite as random as that.
Katie Burke:I mean, you're still doing negative space.
Walter Matia:I love I love process. Yeah. I mean, I love the engineering of things, and intaglio printmaking sort of scratched that itch.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:And and, you know, certainly sculpture is, you know, just sort of constantly trying to figure out how the hell to make something.
Katie Burke:Yeah. And you're still dealing with, like, working, you know, I like I don't know if that's not the right word, but you're working backwards almost. You know? It's not like painting where you're building on top. You're working.
Katie Burke:You're neg it's like negative work. Like so because you're not yeah. What you're what you're putting is not what you're getting necessarily, like because, you know, yeah, you're working in negative space to a certain degree.
Walter Matia:Yeah. Which is helpful. Both ways. Yeah. You're working Which both is a little a little different than painting, although, you know, good painting, good sculpture, they have the same elements.
Katie Burke:Yeah. So but that that does help you to go what I'm saying is it helps you go into sculpture. Like, you are learning techniques and things that will then transfer unless
Walter Matia:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the the the things that I did at the museum were obviously more applicable. Yep. If only that, you know, some of the subsculpture actually is simply understanding tools.
Walter Matia:Yeah. And understanding adhesives and understanding understanding bonding agents and under you know, there's I mean, you know, people every once in while, somebody will say, well, do you ever teach classes? And I say, well, I haven't for years. And they said, well, would you? I said, well, truth be told, if you actually gave me a day and a half, I could teach you how to sculpt.
Walter Matia:Right. Now whether you would actually work at it enough to get any good at it, that's up to you. But it's it's mostly the the if you can just get by some of the rudimentary problems that sort of stop people in their tracks. Mhmm. You know, they they're they're afraid of certain things.
Walter Matia:You're like, well, you know, yes, they're hard. But if you understand what they are, it it it reduces a lot of the the mystery to it.
Katie Burke:Yeah. And there's a high, like, failure. Like, you're not when you fail a sculpture, it's it's not like failing in a painting. You can't just I mean, I guess watercolor is that way in some ways. It's not much you can do about what that mistake.
Katie Burke:But, yeah, you you kinda almost have to it's it's hard to fix a mistake. Right? Like, it's not you kinda have to go back. The
Walter Matia:the the hard part of sculpture, and, you know, I don't wanna make this too daunting. But Yeah. You when you're learning to paint, you're making mistakes at about 3 and a half dollars apiece.
Katie Burke:Yep. Exactly. That's what yeah. It's so
Walter Matia:you're when you're learning to sculpt, you're making mistakes at 1,500 to $2,000 apiece. Yeah. And they're just the simple truth is you have to make almost the same number of mistakes. Yeah. You know?
Walter Matia:I mean, you gotta do 500 paintings before you have any idea what you're doing. Yep. Well, you don't have to do 500 sculptures, but you gotta do 50. Mhmm. You know?
Walter Matia:And and you're at a $100,000 in training. Yep. That is probably the more daunting aspect of sculpture for a younger person.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:You know, you you just burn through money trying to figure out how to do it, and there's no there there are very little there there's very few ways you can avoid avoid it. I mean, you know, some people are smarter than I am, but I'm sure I blew through a $100,000.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Well, I mean, you have to make those mistakes. That's just that's part of it. Like, that's all art. You have to make mistakes to learn to learn your process, to learn what works.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. It's just yeah. It's a higher it's higher stakes when it comes to sculpture.
Katie Burke:Yeah. So I wanna go back before we get too far ahead. I wanna go back to a little bit in the museum with doing the the taxidermy stuff because I don't think people really realize at that time, you weren't, like, that y'all weren't buying molds and stuff for taxidermy. You were making the molds. Correct?
Katie Burke:Like, were doing that in in house.
Walter Matia:I'd I'd love to romantically say that's what we were doing, but in truth, this was museum taxidermy.
Katie Burke:Oh, yeah. And it's different. It's not the same.
Walter Matia:We we didn't we didn't actually melt that many animals. I mean, mostly, we were doing skeleton preparation and study skins and things like that. We Yep. We we really we didn't need to add that many actual mounts
Katie Burke:No.
Walter Matia:To the collections.
Katie Burke:I'm guessing you're doing repairs and stuff too. Like
Walter Matia:Yeah. You were doing it was more of that, but you you skinned out a lot of animals, and you learn you learn the structure Mhmm. Of how things were how things were organized from the inside out. Yeah. And that understanding was the most important part of my education for later sculpture work.
Walter Matia:Yeah. I really know how stuff's built.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. That that makes a lot of sense. So that makes me it makes me laugh because when I was a kid, I really I was like a horse kid, and I really wanted to paint a horse of like, that's all I wanted to do. And my art teacher was like, well, no.
Katie Burke:You can't do it yet. You're not ready. And I was young. I was might be like, I think I was like 12. And 12 or 13, I just started doing oils, and she was like, was like and I wanna do it immediately, and she was like, no, no, no.
Katie Burke:And she was like and I was determined. I just like would ask every week I'd show up and like, okay, I wanna do a horse, and she was like, no. And finally, was like, okay, you can do a horse if you do the entire skeleton, and, like, she made me do all this stuff to, like, prepare to do it and it took me probably it took me a few months to get through all the little anatomy things she made me draw and Uh-huh. And eventually, I did it. I've when I got there and I did a horse and it's I still have it.
Katie Burke:It's not terrible for the age I was, but I definitely understood when I went to do it, like, she made me go through all of that work. Like, it it made a difference because I knew what was underneath
Walter Matia:the skin. You were lucky you were lucky to run into a teacher like that. I mean, at one level, you know, I I truly believe all kids are artistic until they're told they're not.
Katie Burke:Yep. I
Walter Matia:I think it's one of the saddest things in the world. Yeah.
Katie Burke:I agree.
Walter Matia:If you had real desire and if you had some skills, having a teacher that will make you slow down enough to understand what you're actually asking to do, That's a rare thing because she obviously cared about you.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. She's wonderful. I love her. It's like I still I still talk to her to this day.
Katie Burke:Mhmm. But, yeah, I was yeah. I she made me go through, and I do I understand what you mean. Like, you going through and skinning all those you know, preparing all those skins and stuff, you learned what's underneath, and so much of movement is knowing the anatomy of an animal.
Walter Matia:Well, certainly, I mean, it's not as in some ways, it's not as critical with birds because birds are a whole different problem. Yep. But certainly, most mammals in general is they're basically just a series of planes Mhmm. Where bones come to the surface. Yep.
Walter Matia:And if you know where those planes are going and if you know where those bones are coming to the surface, it's gonna look right. Yeah. If you don't know where those things are, it's not. You know, it's really that simple. And it doesn't matter whether you're sculpting or painting or, you know, doing printing or I mean, it just knowing those those specific anatomical points isn't necessarily gonna make it artistic.
Katie Burke:No. But you'll get it right.
Walter Matia:From being wrong.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Yes. You won't look at and go something's wrong with that, like, to have that Yeah.
Walter Matia:Well, you you undoubtedly will, but it it it will be something else.
Katie Burke:Yes. But the the random person won't look at it and go, there that that, you know, dog looks funny. I mean, I can't quite figure out
Walter Matia:why. Well, there's I mean, there are levels of the game. I mean, the the in sculpture, the the female the female torso and the male torso, that's really hard. Yeah. Because we all have one, and we all kind of know what it looks like.
Walter Matia:Yeah. Horses are the next hardest thing just because the the iconography of the horse is so embedded Mhmm. In all of our history.
Katie Burke:Yep.
Walter Matia:The next after that are dogs because, you know, we all got them, you know, and they are they're very subtle. Yep. The the hardest animal to sculpt, think, hardest mammal to sculpt outside of a human is the is the cat.
Katie Burke:Oh, really?
Walter Matia:Yeah. It is. And and the problem with cats are that they, in fact, have no bones.
Katie Burke:I'll say it's because they have such loose They're they're Yeah.
Walter Matia:They're they're kinda like yogurt in a sack.
Katie Burke:Yeah. So I was gonna say it's because they're so loose skinned. Yeah.
Walter Matia:They're so loose, and a dog can only do certain things. A horse can only do certain things. A cow can only do certain things. A cat, I mean, you can tie the damn thing in a knot because of how it's how the axial processes in its vertebrae are are organized.
Katie Burke:Yep.
Walter Matia:So they're really hard.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. Because they can kinda do you know, that I can I've never I'm not a cat person, so I never thought about it very hard. But, yeah, I I can see that now.
Katie Burke:They say and then their skin kinda can hang loose on them too. Right. Yeah. Which doesn't help either.
Walter Matia:It's a they're they're complicated. But, anyway, just just having having dissected as it were, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of animals, there are very few things that I probably couldn't just draw you out of my head. Right. Mhmm. And and this is probably jumping ahead, but but, you know, in in all art forms, you know, we all go from initially just wanting to get it right to wanting to both get it right and identify what we wanna say about it.
Walter Matia:And in that continuum is, you know, the whole question of intent. And you it's very difficult to have intent in your work if you're always looking back and forth to what it what what you're trying to figure out what it actually looks like. You know? You you can you're once you've once you sort of know that your hands and your head are working in in process with each other, then you can really do some great things.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:But but it's a it's a learning curve that you cannot avoid. You know? You you gotta get it right to start, and then you gotta let your head sort of organize what you're really gonna do because just getting it right isn't gonna get you there.
Katie Burke:It's like putting in your, as I say, your ten thousand hours. And then Yeah. And then, you know, and then you can go.
Walter Matia:That that outliers was pretty interesting. So I think people really concentrate on the wrong the wrong thing. Yeah. You know? It's it's not the ten thousand hours.
Walter Matia:It's the fact that even if you put in the ten thousand hours, if you didn't have the four or five mentors in your life on the way, you still were highly unlikely to be successful.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. That's a good spot. Alright. Let's take a quick break for commercial, and we'll be right back.
Katie Burke:I'm here with Walter Matia, and let's just jump back in. So I okay. That was a really good point about the mentors, and I I'd like you to go in. I know you mentioned a few of them already. Could you kind of talk about the mentors in your life and their importance and just the importance of mentors kinda more in general and how they've, you know, helped you in your career?
Walter Matia:Well, I probably should have thought a little about that, but I I can say that I had three very specific no. Four mentors in in at critical times. One was the man I talked about earlier, Larry Izzard, who was the taxidermist preparer or whatever Mhmm. For the Natural History Museum in Cleveland. And and and he, I mean, he basically was just a guide to my early development of things that I needed to know.
Walter Matia:Mhmm. You know? He was the guy that basically said, alright. You you do need to know how to skin something out. You do need to understand the musculature.
Walter Matia:You do need to understand something about the chemicals to keep yourself from killing yourself. You do need to understand, you know, things about different materials and adhesives. And and so he he was that person. He also was the guy that got me into bird hunting. So that's a whole other different thing, which is but when I got to the nature conservancy, the man who I basically worked for was a man named doctor Robert Jenkins, who was the head of science for the Nature Conservancy.
Walter Matia:And if you are lucky in your life, you will work for one person who a, has a really good idea worth working very hard for and who was willing to throw you at problems that were always just a little beyond what you thought you knew how to do. Mhmm. And, you know, Bob basically, you know, he sent me down to Capitol Hill to work on legislation, and then he sent me to a television program in Saint Louis to be on stage with Marlon Perkins and the head of the Missouri Botanic Gardens. And then he sent me to California to negotiate a contract with the state of California. And then he then he sent me to Washington State, you know, to run on dangerous pieces inventory.
Walter Matia:And, you know, that one I didn't know how to do any of this shit. But and and some of it I did well and some of it I did badly. Mhmm. But he was constantly pushing me to try and do things that I didn't know how to do before. And because I had such tremendous respect for the man, you know, I I felt terrible when I screwed up.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:But he never he never dwelled on that. You know? He just always dwelled on the next thing. Yeah. That's an amazing mentor.
Walter Matia:Mhmm. And then as I got into the sculpting world, we talked earlier about just the cost of becoming a sculptor. I did meet two people who became my business partners, and we formed a corporation. They had they had some some wealth and so they could basically absorb some of the losses of the corporation. Mhmm.
Walter Matia:But it was both their their financial support, but it was the the the mental support as well. I mean, they they kept me really focused on what I needed to get done. And then lastly, I I met a guy just as I was quitting the nature I think it was about, I don't know, maybe a year before I was actually leaving the nature conservancy. A man named William Reese, who was a fabulous painter and sculptor. He was from Washington State, and he pretty much beat me up for about thirty years, forcing me to not be satisfied with what I was doing, but also sort of insisting that I try all kinds of things in my art career.
Walter Matia:He used to quote, I think it was Michelangelo, who said something effective, there is no artist so stupid he cannot be trained to do one thing well. Beware, oh, painter.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:And and Bill just, you know, insisted that I learn how to paint. He insisted that I, you know, thought more about figures. He insisted that I, you know, not not his main point was once you were doing something well, it was really time to move on.
Katie Burke:Mhmm.
Walter Matia:Because allowing yourself to drop into a comfort zone, was sort of the death of your creativity.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:And the other thing about Bill was, and I don't want this to sound too bad, but, you know, I was from the East Coast, and I was interested in animals. And those two factors could pretty quickly throw you into a silo of artists that were sort of, you know, sort of the winner of the duck stamp was a big deal. Mhmm. And Bill was like, do you wanna win the duck stamp? I go, no.
Walter Matia:I got no interest in it. He goes, then let's let's try and pick your heroes here.
Katie Burke:Right.
Walter Matia:And he and he introduced me to sort of the Western art world. He introduced me to much of American art of the nineteenth century and twentieth century. He introduced me to, you know, to to Russian painters, Russian landscape painters, Levitan, Russian portrait painters, Seraph and Rappine. Mhmm. Bill just insisted that sort of my artistic yardsticks were really well calibrated.
Walter Matia:Mhmm. And had I nabbed that bill, I I my life would have been very, very different. Yeah. Because I simply, you know, I would have chased different things, and they would not have been anywhere near satisfying to me.
Katie Burke:Yeah. And I I that's one thing. And, like, I noticed when I look at your stuff, like, you have very I mean, it's very years. Like, yeah, I can tell your sculpture, like, immediately. It's it's very yeah.
Katie Burke:You have a very specific style and, yeah, it's pretty uniquely you. And when it comes to, like and, you know, I talk to a lot of artists and there's, you know, there's nothing wrong with going for the Doug Stamp, but it does seem to be it does kind of take and I don't know if this is and I this might be more of a criticism of the rules of the duck stamp. I get the reason to go for the duck stamp. It it makes a lot of these painters' careers, but they've they've got the rules down to such a specific thing. Like, it's almost and I've talked to Adam Grimm about it, and he'll tell you that it's a it's it's a science to win it.
Katie Burke:Like, he knows, like, this is this is how to win the duck stamp.
Walter Matia:Mhmm. And Or or this is how to not win the duck stamp.
Katie Burke:Yeah. And this oh, yeah. And this is how to not win the ducks. I mean, he even picks the species by what he thinks the judges will pick. Yeah.
Katie Burke:He yeah. And he and and I don't know. I'm not gonna talk about, like, someone like him. Like, I don't think, you know, he's a very talented person, but I think when it comes to people coming up in that field, it definitely has such a big influence that it changes what they do as an artist. And I think you to make a statement, it's pretty brave to say early on that you're not gonna do that.
Katie Burke:You're gonna go about it a different way because it's not necessarily gonna be a easier way. But I mean, could be.
Walter Matia:It I I'm not gonna listen. I'm not I'm not gonna presume that that I could ever paint well enough
Katie Burke:To do that. Yeah.
Walter Matia:Actually win the ducks stamp. I don't know if I could.
Katie Burke:Yeah. But definitely influences what they become.
Walter Matia:People that do it, And and and they're extraordinary.
Katie Burke:Yeah. They are.
Walter Matia:Forget it. Love it. Let's they're extraordinary.
Katie Burke:They are.
Walter Matia:I just it I was simply I just wasn't interested in it.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I think my complaint with the duck stamp is that I wish they would loosen the rules. Like
Walter Matia:Well, I don't I don't want them to change their rules, to be honest with you. They come up with a really they come up with a really good stamp. Yeah. That's the job. They're they're coming up with a stamp.
Walter Matia:And so I don't it was listen. There's plenty of other places to exercise your artistic creativity.
Katie Burke:Yep.
Walter Matia:This is their these were their rules.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:Play by it. Yeah. I mean, I don't I don't I don't really wanna change their rules. I I judged the duck stamp a number of years ago. It was fascinating.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I've I've been I wanna do it one day.
Walter Matia:But it it's no. I mean, the the you know, I the the the people whose work in the sporting art world that I gravitated to were Frank Benson Yeah. And Ogden Pleisner Yeah. And John Cowan.
Katie Burke:And Lasso. Did you like Lasso?
Walter Matia:And Lasso Ripley and Richard Bishop. And those were those were where I initially gravitated to because I had access to a lot of their originals in Cleveland.
Katie Burke:I guess that's my thing is I miss those those I sometimes I wish we could do a early style. Like, I miss the early style of the duck stamp because I also gravitate towards those as well. And Yeah. I miss
Walter Matia:them a I you know, it's, again, don't don't don't ask an apple to be an orange.
Katie Burke:Yeah. It's true.
Walter Matia:It's it's
Katie Burke:You're right.
Walter Matia:You're right. They got their thing. The the stamps are beautiful.
Katie Burke:They are.
Walter Matia:The guys that know how to do it know how to do it, and I don't think it's worth really worrying about.
Katie Burke:We just need more, etching people to etch more often out there.
Walter Matia:It's it's not gonna happen. I mean, I think, who was the last person that did a well, what is it? Alderson McGee did a scratch board. I think that was the last black and white Yeah. Stamp.
Katie Burke:It was. Mhmm.
Walter Matia:No. You're right. I guess maybe you know, I it's it's see, I yeah. So what?
Katie Burke:Yeah. So
Walter Matia:What's what's interesting to me about sort of the sporting art world, and and it's it's it's both in sculpture and in painting, I just don't see that huge an evolution from Benson and Pleisner and Ripley and Bishop. I I Yeah. I would have thought that, you know, sort of fifty years sixty fifty years on that we would be seeing a lot of very different approaches to it. But I I have sort of this sense that the sort of the catechism of the sporting art world is such that so many places that people paint are on kind of this grand tour. Mhmm.
Walter Matia:Whether it's, you know, salt flats in Texas or flooded timber in Arkansas or yeah. You know, it's just the places that people choose to talk about the sporting art world are fairly limited in a funny way.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Never thought about that.
Walter Matia:And I don't I I don't know. And, you know, the client base for people in the sporting art world are pretty literal people.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. That's very true. Yeah. That's extremely true.
Katie Burke:And and it's I was just talking to I I just interviewed Scott Storm, and he was talking, you know, a lot of and I actually and like that he did this because I don't think everyone does this, but a lot of his commissions are for people to come, you know, basically paint their duck hole or where they, yeah, where they hunt. And he actually, like, insists to go there and be there and hunt there, which I I don't think I don't know if that I don't know if that's the the normal thing. Pretty normal. Okay. That is?
Katie Burke:Okay.
Walter Matia:It's pretty it's pretty normal.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Which I'm glad because I was like, having to do it from images, don't think you would get it. But, yeah, I was like, but he goes to those places because that's I mean and by speaking to that, people are literal. Like, I was saying, you're they're getting commissions for literal places, like, for physical places. Mhmm.
Katie Burke:So Yeah. They're not they're that's you're getting because that's what your client I mean, because it's you have to make a living. Right? Like, this is it's a business ultimately. It's what you do.
Katie Burke:So
Walter Matia:I mean, you you didn't win the the uterine
Katie Burke:lottery? Exactly.
Walter Matia:How silly of you.
Katie Burke:So, yeah, like, you can't just do it for fun. So, yeah, I mean Yeah. So that, I mean, market drives the art as well, and it's interesting.
Walter Matia:You can say that, you know, right up to the point where you Mhmm. Sort of look at the people who no longer needed the money. Yeah. Bishop Benson, in particular. God, his his Marchines don't look like anybody else's Marchines, and they're fabulous.
Walter Matia:Yeah. And they have a verisimilitude to them that no photograph is gonna give you because he's not painting something he even saw. Yeah. They're he's making it up.
Katie Burke:He's making
Walter Matia:it up. His winter scenes are cold as hell.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:You know?
Katie Burke:He's making
Walter Matia:it They're they're full of mosquitoes in the fall. They're I mean, you just get this stance that he was there, and he is doing the impression of what was there. He was representing what was there. Yeah. And and as a result, you look at those things and they're magic.
Katie Burke:Do you think that happens more at the end of a artist's career? Like, they have that ability the freedom to do more of that once they've No.
Walter Matia:I mean, some people are some people just have have more guts than others.
Katie Burke:Mhmm.
Walter Matia:And some people are in different financial situations.
Katie Burke:Yeah. That's yeah. That's why I was kinda leaning
Walter Matia:You know? I mean, it's it's I mean, I I had a job before I did this. You know, I saved a little bit of money before I quit to sculpt. I lined up some investors after I decided this or before I decided to to sculpt full time. Mhmm.
Walter Matia:So I wasn't terrified every time I went to an art show that I had to sell something.
Katie Burke:Right.
Walter Matia:Well, I'll tell you that is a level of freedom that a lot of my really dear friends never had. Yeah. You know? They had to sell something. They had, you know, two kids and a spouse, you know, that were on the other end of the phone kinda going, well, what happened?
Walter Matia:Yeah. It's a it's a very different level of of well, it's harder. I'll leave it at that.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. It makes sense. It's interesting. Okay.
Katie Burke:So I wanna go back a little bit because we kinda went off there, which happens a lot in this in these podcasts because I get curious. So I wanna talk more about, like, we are we haven't talked as much about your work specifically now and, like, in since you became, you know, a full time sculptress. But I think the thing I like about your sculpture, and I and I don't know if this is true to you, but I this is what I when I see it, I always feel like your animals it's like somebody else is there. Like, there's does that make sense? Like, the way they're reacting feels like they're not alone.
Katie Burke:Like, they have this which I like, like, they have this like, it's almost like they're something is walking up on them or they're they're reacting to something in, like, another animal, but that's the thing I always notice about, like, particularly your I love to turkey hunt and I love turkeys, but your turkeys always give me that impression like, oh, no. They're on to me.
Walter Matia:That did. I don't wanna use that as
Katie Burke:a title. Oh, no. They're on to me.
Walter Matia:That's good. That's actually my name. If I ever go to their turkey, I'm gonna use that, and I'll I'll credit you.
Katie Burke:Thanks. I appreciate it. So there's a reason
Walter Matia:for I mean, first off, thank you. You you get it. You're you're absolutely right. And and part of this is the contract that you make as a sporting artist. You know, something is either the hunter or the hunted.
Walter Matia:Yeah. And both of them have gotta be in the storyline. Yeah. So I am very attentive to the gestures of reaction.
Katie Burke:Okay. Yeah. I could
Walter Matia:see that. I'm very attentive to what I will call the range of motion of something in that one of the I call it sort of the seeing, knowing matrix. You know, we're at a point now with digital photography and videography and whatever else that, frankly, you can know everything.
Katie Burke:Yeah. I
Walter Matia:mean, there's absolutely no reason to get something wrong.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:But you're a hunter. You really can only see what you can see Mhmm. From fifteen, twenty yards away. Yep. And I try to make sure that my pieces don't really give you any more information than you could see from 15 or so yards away.
Walter Matia:I don't pick a flight gesture that you can't actually sort of see in your head. Mhmm. You know, there are if I've sculpted hundreds of waterfowl pieces in my life.
Katie Burke:I love your teal.
Walter Matia:His But I don't pick any gesture that isn't at sort of that range of motion in the wing flight Mhmm. That it isn't sort of either at the end of a range of motion or just starting into the next one.
Katie Burke:Okay.
Walter Matia:I don't do stuff that's halfway Mhmm. Because it's going too fast for your eye to really pick that up.
Katie Burke:Right.
Walter Matia:And it looks weird to
Katie Burke:me. Mhmm.
Walter Matia:And it kinda messes up it messes with the silhouette. Mhmm. So, you know, I'm basically sculpting for what I will call a hunter's distance.
Katie Burke:Okay. That makes sense. I can see that too, like, the way when you say that, and I wish people need to go online and look, but I think of, like, the way you do your teal, your flying teal, it's definitely very much what you see when they, like, buzz through like that. Like, it's just
Walter Matia:Mhmm.
Katie Burke:They're all different. They're all flipped different directions and they're I mean, obviously, they you know they're doing more than that, but you can't see. Like, it's too fast.
Walter Matia:I basically yeah. It's well, you can't you can't see it. And so what you're you're basically trying to do is you're trying to engineer speed.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:And you're doing that by how you're organizing the groupings of them, how you're organizing the negative spaces between them, and how you're organizing just the spacing sort of left to right. And I don't know. I think I I in order to do those teal pieces, I think I modeled about 12 different teal and different poses.
Katie Burke:That's what I was gonna ask you. I'm guessing.
Walter Matia:And when I when I build one of those pieces, I will have 10 or 11 different pieces on the floor to pick from, and I may only use four of
Katie Burke:them. Okay.
Walter Matia:But I just keep I'll I'll put one up. I'll I'll build the Marscene, or I'll build the structure of the Marscene. I'll add a bird, then I'll add another bird, then I'll add another bird, and then variably, I'll cut one off and put a different one there because it just doesn't have the right whatever. Or I can't get the eyes completely level based on how I need to attach it to the reeds. Mhmm.
Walter Matia:Or clearly, looks like it's engineered, at which point you gotta start again because it has to be engineered but not look engineered. Mhmm. And you just keep going, you know, you keep going back and forth until you get an arrangement that radiates either speed or confusion, or it just depends what you're what you're going for.
Katie Burke:Going for. Mhmm.
Walter Matia:I mean, know, it's what is your intent of the piece? I mean, you do have to start with that. You know, you can't you can't noodle your way into that. If if you don't have an idea in your head, it'll be very obvious pretty quickly.
Katie Burke:Yeah. So with that, do you when you're when you have an idea like, I'm guessing so when you when you have an idea, so do you sketch it out and think of a pattern, like, on paper and then go Really? No. You just kinda start No. Playing around
Walter Matia:and see how I mean
Katie Burke:How does that
Walter Matia:is a lot of a lot of times, it's because you're doing it for a peer by person
Katie Burke:Right.
Walter Matia:And you're doing it for a space. So that defines your scale and it defines some of your ideas. Other times, you're just doing for one for yourself, and then the reality of shipping and crating and all the rest of the stuff comes in that you kinda go, well, if I make this thing 79 inches tall, I can build the crate out of one piece of plywood. If I build it 81 inches tall, I gotta use two pieces of I mean, you know and and you start you know, you the the business side of your head sort of comes in. And then you kinda go, oh, screw it.
Walter Matia:I'll buy more plywood. It really needs to be 83 inches tall.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:You know? Because I need to get that one bird that much higher. And to get it that much higher, I have to use a reed that's that much heavier, that farther up to, you know, for the support. And, you know, it just then it becomes this engineering thing. How are you gonna do it?
Walter Matia:So, again, it's gonna hold together, but it's not gonna look like you're constantly sticking a stick up its butt, which drives me crazy when I look at people's sculptures. Yeah. It's like they know they've gotta support it, and this is like, well, why? Why would you do that?
Katie Burke:Right. No. I I do notice that too. It's good thing you like process.
Walter Matia:Well, no. I do. I I love the process of it.
Katie Burke:Yeah. It is yeah. It is you're solving a problem, like, basically, constantly. Yeah. That's really interesting.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. I I do. I like that. I also noticed that, like because you're right.
Katie Burke:I mean, obviously, you're right. But when you say that, like, it's what you can see, like, because, like, from a hunter's point of view, because I think about that again with your turkeys and how one thing you do is you don't do every feather or anything like that. It's not soup it is detailed, but it's not super detailed, but the detail I like that people probably don't notice is a turkey's feathers will sometimes go different directions. Like, they don't necessarily let you know, they like, the wind will blow them and it's such that suggestion you have of that in your turkeys is so like, it makes it it's it's very accurate. Like, you could talk about the mammals and they have the planes and you have to get that all right, but that little bit of a detail in a turkey is only a turkey hunter knows that about a turkey.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Yeah. Like.
Walter Matia:Well, the I mean, you know, some birds are more I don't do a whole lot of really small birds. I
Katie Burke:mean, I've done some. You did a kingfisher not long ago. I like the
Walter Matia:No. Yeah. I had a friend that said that she wanted a woodcock. And and then she said, well, actually, what I want is three woodcock. And I'm like, that's a little pushy.
Walter Matia:But but they they've been good friends, and so I did them. But that's about as small a bird as I've done in a long time. Yeah. And and you can get away with something like a woodcock because there there are They're funny. Aspects of them that are just so completely goofy.
Katie Burke:Yes. They're goofy goofy. Cooper Then you can Cooper, Rossner that works for John loves woodcocks, and I'm like, they're the weirdest, ugliest, little goofy bird.
Walter Matia:No. Ugly is not the right word. They're just they're just so adapt adapted to such a weird thing.
Katie Burke:That's who they are. They're very specific.
Walter Matia:And so they've got they got they got a great character. But let's say we're going back to turkeys. You know? I mean, I don't live out west. If if if I lived in Colorado, I might have been I might have been lured into doing big game.
Walter Matia:Yeah. But I got nothing to say about elk and moose and bears and Say Oh my.
Katie Burke:I grew up in Mississippi. Yeah. We don't do that.
Walter Matia:I I know nothing about them. You know? And and I have nothing to say about them.
Katie Burke:Right.
Walter Matia:But turkeys are kinda eastern big game. Yeah. You know? I see them all the time, And they are you can because they're large and because their feathers are in so many different shapes and planes, you can treat them like muscle groups. Mhmm.
Walter Matia:And and you really can you can do a lot of stuff with them. Yeah. You know? And I think that's what you're reacting to is all the subtle planal shifts which throw light back at you Yep. In so many different ways.
Katie Burke:They do that in real life.
Walter Matia:Fun to sculpt.
Katie Burke:Yeah. And they do that in real life. Like, you can the Yeah. They shine and stuff and oh, yeah. Mhmm.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. I also yeah. No. You do you're right.
Katie Burke:Like and I think about that, like, with your herons and stuff too. It's like, yeah, we don't have big game. Like, that's true. And I guess that's No. Maybe I never thought about that being from where I'm from and where I hunt, but these are the big animals we do have, even the like, our birds mostly.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Yeah.
Walter Matia:Mean, I I mean, I like deer that eat, I guess.
Katie Burke:Yeah.
Walter Matia:They're they're so annoying otherwise that I serve her.
Katie Burke:We we're hunting them now because
Walter Matia:We're down to about we're down to about four plants in my garden that they won't eat. Yes. We've got a herd of got a herd of about 25 of them that are regularly tromping through eating everything.
Katie Burke:Oh, yeah.
Walter Matia:I got I got one I got one guy that hunts the place. Yeah. And we right now have a 12 and a 10. Oh, nice. Using the yard.
Walter Matia:Yeah. And and he just he's salivating. And and I have this we have this we have this deal. I said, you can you can hunt anything you want as much as you want, but you have to shoot at least three does. Yeah.
Walter Matia:Before you don't you don't have to do it before you shoot the buck if you have a chance, but you gotta shoot at least three does to maintain the trouble that you're shooting on the property.
Katie Burke:No. That's not bad. We luckily have a lot of grandkids now, and they are now into deer hunting. So they yeah. Deer hunting's pretty it's easy, so they like doing it.
Katie Burke:They, you know Mhmm. They're at that stage as a hunter where they just wanna shoot stuff.
Walter Matia:So They wanna shoot stuff. Yeah. I get it.
Katie Burke:Yeah. Yeah. We all went through it.
Walter Matia:We all went through it. That's right. Did we ever?
Katie Burke:So they're at that stage. So they they help the they help our maintain our deer population.
Walter Matia:Yeah.
Katie Burke:Well, Walter, this has been super fun, but I've had you for over an hour now. So Wow. Is there anything I know it goes by fast, doesn't it? Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to, like, mention before we go?
Walter Matia:No. We we have to we have to hang up before I remember that.
Katie Burke:I know. That's that's usually the way that goes. Well, this has been super fun. You'll have to come back.
Walter Matia:Alright. Next time, I promise to have an audio visual capability. How about that?
Katie Burke:Yes. We'll do it. You know what we need to do is when I'm in Easton, I need to, like, come out after the festival, like, and comes visit you in your and do this in your, like, in your shop, in your studio.
Walter Matia:That'd be fine. Yeah.
Katie Burke:That would be really fun. Yeah.
Walter Matia:Now, I'm not gonna go to Easton this year.
Katie Burke:You're not going to Easton?
Walter Matia:I just I have the entire month of September, I'm traveling, entire month of October.
Katie Burke:Oh, yeah.
Walter Matia:I've got things I'm supposed to be doing, and I just Yeah. I can't face it. I can't face another six days of setting the stuff up and taking it down.
Katie Burke:Yeah. And your stuff isn't easy to set up and take down.
Walter Matia:No. It's not. They aren't miniatures. You know? They're just too old for this stuff.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No.
Walter Matia:Well, I'll Actually, I have to go down to I gotta go down to Thomasville, Georgia the weekend aft the week after. Yeah. And I've been going down there hunting and fishing now for fifty something years, and there it's one of the it's they're sort of their anniversary show, their fortieth or something, and I said I'd go down and I'd give a talk. And
Katie Burke:Okay.
Walter Matia:So I gotta go.
Katie Burke:Yeah. No. That'll be great. But I'll I mean, I go to Eastern every year, so we will make it happen eventually.
Walter Matia:Alright. Very good.
Katie Burke:Well, thank you for doing this, Walter. I really appreciate it.
Katie Burke:Thanks to our producers, Chris and Rachel, and thanks to you, our listener, for supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.
Creators and Guests
