We were lucky to catch up with Justin DeMattico recently and have shared our conversation below.
Justin , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
First and foremost, my purpose stems from my relationship with God and my Christian upbringing. I truly believe that when you live each and every day for Christ, dedicating your work to Him, your path will be straight. Purpose comes from passion, what is your passion? Use that passion to drive you toward your purpose. Perhaps you’re good at cooking, or giving advice, or business ideas, or guiding others; the question then becomes “what can I do with this to make a living for myself?” I am an artist and through my art, I merge all different aspects of myself including my faith, personal experiences and other aspects of my life to influence my work as well as spread a message to the world. A huge theme of my work is acceptance and to piggyback off of that, love. I truly feel that in God’s plan for my life, my artistic abilities, which He alone gave me, are meant to spread love of any kind, whether it be self-love, body positivity, loving your neighbor or just the love of creation as a whole. My purpose is found in the moments when someone connects with my work, can draw something from it that resonates with themselves and makes them feel as though they belong, they are loved, cared about and they too have a purpose to fulfill on this Earth.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Currently, I am an adjunct art professor, teaching drawing and color theory courses. When I am not teaching, my artistic career is heavily focused on my paintings but more recently a regular, daily sketchbook practice has been incorporated into it as well. At my core, I am a painter. I dabble in all media such as oils, acrylics and watercolors/gouache. I love figurative work and symbolism with my pieces. It is truly fascinating to me how much symbolism plays a factor in our everyday lives as humans. Whether you realize it or not, we are surrounded by symbols, the stop sign at the end of your street, the smiley face on your takeout bag, or even the wedding ring on your finger. These are all symbols we use to represent or denote something, and I really love exploring them, especially nature/animal symbols in my paintings. I am in the process of working on a new series of paintings about the male form and the beauty that comes with it. I am really excited to share these paintings when they are complete. I am also beginning to launch prints of my work for sale and will be listing originals shortly as well. My social media presence is something I am in the process of growing, and I can be reached for commission work through those links.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
If I had to pick three qualities that I think were most impactful on my journey they would be the following: dedication, perseverance, and confidence. Allow me to explain my choices. First and foremost, dedication is incredibly important in an art practice. The only way to improve is to keep practicing, making work and trying new things. You have to walk into your practice with the mindset that you enjoy this and this is what brings joy into your life. Most creatives feel uneasy, guilty or even depressed when they are in a lull and don’t work regularly (and I have sure felt that way many times). A dedication to grow and hone your abilities will take you far, seize EVERY opportunity to connect, grow and learn. Secondly, perseverance. We all feel at times that we hit a wall, that our work is not good enough or maybe we even received some hateful comments toward our work, we have to be able to grow through these situations and keep working. When we hit these obstacles, we can either be defeated and stop making work or we can grow through them, which will only strengthen us the next time we encounter those feelings again. Last but not least, its confidence. This is HUGE for anyone who is a creative. We have to have the confidence to stand by our work and be prepared to defend it. There will always be people who don’t like what we create, the message we’re trying to share or some aspect of us, but we cannot throw in the towel right there and completely stop making the work. Instead, we have to have the confidence to know that our work does matter, the message we are sharing is important to us therefore, eventually, it will find the people who find it important as well. All three of these really go hand-in-hand with each other but these are the three qualities that I had to develop and grow in order to get where I am today.
What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
In the last 12 months in n my artistic practice, the biggest areas of growth and improvement are in the consistency of my output. I graduated from graduate school in June of 2022 and I remember thinking, “This is it… you’re completely on your own now. There are no more assignments or teachers guiding you to complete work or improve it,” and that was a scary thought. You have to find other creatives that you connect with to become your community to share ideas with, grow with, critique one another. A few months later, I received a job offer to become and adjunct college professor in the art department, which I jumped on. I really love teaching and helping the younger crowd hone and find their abilities in art. Around this time though, I hit a creative wall. I had no desire to create and the guilt began to overtake me because I knew I wanted to be making, creating something… anything to be productive but it really took a few months before I began forcing myself to make work again. Since that point (roughly January 2023), I have been on a new level of growth, taking other courses with artists I am inspired by and that really helped me not only create something but begin to develop the habit of creating regularly, and I have been now. I can truly say I have never felt more creative and happy than producing something small in my sketchbook everyday while I can focus in my larger works and take my time the rest of the day. I actually think the increased productivity haas increased my creative thinking as well, it is really magical
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.justindemattico.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justin_demattico_art/
- Other: @justin_demattico_art on Threads @justindemattico on TikTok
Image Credits
N/A
