Biography:
Matt was born on January 8th 1960 with a case of mild mental retardation. His mother obtained a BA in Science from Bates college Lewistown Maine. She taught math for a sum of 32 years, and still tutors past her retirement. His father was a very accomplished musician. He taught at the Stone School of Business in New Haven. He was an accountant with many private clients. As a professional musician, he was treasure of the musicians union, taught music, and played with many famous musicians; even played in the White House. He played the saxophone and the clarinet primarily, but he was able to perform on every instrument he could get his hands on; passing on at the young age of forty four. Matt participated in many Special Olympic Games, and has about 30 medals; I have seen them displayed in his home. He competed in soccer, bowling, swimming (freestyle and relays), softball, and track & field. He also carried the torch for two years at the Special Olympic games and he is a fourth degree knight with the Knights of Columbus.

Matt has maintained employment for a single business for 31 years to date, and is very enthusiastic about his work. He is usually always in a good mood and is the most polite person that I know. We spend a good amount of time in coffee shops in downtown New Haven and no matter which one we enter, most of the staff knows him by name.

Art:
Matt had not had any formal introduction to art prior to our introduction. The first exercise we did was a free drawing exercise in pencil and charcoal (picture coming soon). He chose to draw his home. We worked on several others over the course of a few months working on his hand movements, developing his sense of perception, and bringing him more familiar with his artistic side.

Opening up and becoming more passionate about his work I exposed him to acrylic paint. First we worked on his stroke. The first painting we did was simply a free drawing with a limit to three colors; I did not want to overwhelm him or his first piece with the endless color possibilities (picture#1).

Keeping the colors also to a minimum for his second painting also, I introduced him to the possibility of layering. We chose a miniature statue of the Eiffel Tower as our subject (picture2).

For his third painting, I let him flip through a book of Claude Oscar Monet’s work for some inspiration. He came across a painting of a life size portrait commissioned by Madame Gaudibert (picture#3), and decided to paint it. I first had his show me where the ground line was on the painting, then imagine where it would be in his canvas and draw it there. Next we went over the items in Monet’s painting such as the woman, umbrella, grass, and clouds. He showed me where the thought they should be on his blank canvas, and we marked them. With his rough outline of everything on the blank canvas in pencil, I sketched the outlines of some of the finer details, such as the scarf, her head, and the umbrella. Teaching him more about layering, I pointed him in the direction of his conclusion that the sky should be painted first so that she can be painted over it. I had him pick out the colors in the painting, and then I made the white a little warmer to replicate Monet’s painting; explaining everything to him. I created two piles of white, and of the blue. A cool and warm variety of each and demonstrated how he can have a little of both on his brush at the same time to recreate the depth in Monet’s painting. With the completion of the sky, we then worked on Madam Gaudibert’s umbrella, her scarf, and lastly her body. To achieve the effect of the sun hitting the backside of her dress, I asked Matt where the lightest area of her dress was, and then were he thought the sun might be. His eyes lit up as he said “that’s why her dress is lighter there, I got it Dave, I got it.” Last of all was the grass. This is where I let Matt go freely, picking the colors, mixing the colors, and placing the paint on the canvas. The painting was completed over the course of roughly 3 months (picture#4).