Brad Mattison

-- The piece I wrote a month or so ago about a son railing at his two sisters for criticizing their mother was something I wanted to develop further. The only problem was that I couldn't figure out what the mother did that would be so awful it would lead to the disintegration of the entire family. Today I was reading a fantastic book called "Seven Days in the Art World" by Sarah Thornton, and I realized I had to write something about the types of people found in the book. Then I thought, maybe the family I wrote about before could be a family of those types of people. Maybe what the mother did wouldn't be considered so bad to me or the general populace, but absolutely unforgivable to the people in the family's immediate circle or community. I've said many times that my best stuff tends to come when two things that seem to have no connection aside from the fact that I'm interested in them merge. All that aside, I wanted to do some character profiles, and this is the first one. I'm thinking of calling the piece "The Mattison Collection." --

"Brad Mattison"

I have a problem with the light
The way it's coming in
From the windows up top
I don't really--
Skylights?
Yeah
The skylights
Not really doing
What I need them to be doing

I wasn't aware that the light
Would be so insufficient
I just assumed that with--
Skylights, yeah
That there would be plenty of--
It's just not going to work
With my--
What I do
I need lots of light
Just--
An abundance of light
If that's possible

See I work with mostly
Light and its absence
The lack of light
In a given circumstance
Or a piece, rather
I guess you would say
So I need to have light
Infused everywhere
So that I can then
Sort of--edit the light
If that makes any sense

You might be familiar with my father's work
He did a lot of stuff with the opposite
The opposite of what I do
He did work with darkness
Primarily darkness
Which probably sounds similar
To what I do
But you see
I start with light
And then integrate darkness
But not really darkness
Just the absence
Like I said
The absence of light
Whereas he started with darkness
And would merely be permitting
He would permit light to enter
Which is different
A different perspective
A way of looking at it
Which is perspective
You see
I'm sure you know that
You probably knew that
I just--
Sometimes I like to be clear
I always like to be clear
I think--
It's important

My mother is renting this studio for me
So I just want to make sure
It's--
It's what I want
Because that's what she wants
For me to be able to be happy
In the space
To be productive
She's going to be--
Taking a look at whatever
I get accomplished here
And once she's purchased--
Once she's taken care of everything
She won't want to hear excuses
So I sort of have to be a hardass about this
I guess you could say

I'm planning on paying her back
For however much she's going to spend
She thinks of me as her investment
An investment, in general
She's very good with investing
It gives me a lot of confidence
Which I think is her goal
To give me confidence
In myself
To know that she trusts me enough
To put something behind me
Fiscally speaking

So that's why the conditions
Really need to be, you know
Exactly what I need
Not to be troublesome about it
But I have to insist
Because I can already tell
There's just not enough light
I can barely see myself in here
And that's not what--
I'm hoping to create
Something out of those conditions

I think I may have been initially drawn
To this space
Because it reminded me
Of my father's studio
He had the same studio
For his entire life

I mean
He had many studios
Because he traveled
So he had studios
In several places
But primarily he used one
And that one resembled this one
The one he used
Is now a kind of tourist spot
It's upstate
And they have it--
Gosh
Even I can't get into it now
Without special permission
From someone or something
Some board
I think

It's a really interesting place
Because like I said
It's all about permission
You feel so contained there
You feel...controlled
I mean, you walk in
And it's just--
This feeling hits you
That you're not of your own volition there
That you have to watch
Everything you do
Every step
Every movement
Every time your eyes move
You feel like you're disobeying

It's amazing
That space
What he created there
The fact that he could
Make a place be that sort of--
Make it have that effect
It's really just--
It's something

But that's not what I'm going for here
That's not what I do
I don't want that sort of--
Atmosphere
Here
In the place where I--
I do different things
Than what he did
That's what I--
I wouldn't say I try
Try to do that
But it just sort of happens anyway
Which is good

I--
It's good

So that's the problem I have
It's very reminiscient
And that's--
That's not good for me
I don't like to be
Surrounded by--
By memory, I guess

I don't do well
With memory