Artist Interview: Matt Juzenas

How long have you been doing art? Have you always done it your whole life?

As a kid I was totally into drawing and I had my dad’s briefcase and I’d go down the street door to door and sell my little drawings for a nickel. So I always did like it, but I never did it in school, I never took any art classes until I applied to MIAD. My grandfather was a sign painter in Kenosha and my uncle is a graphic designer, so it was always in the family and my mom’s an artist, so I always loved doing art but I actually went into Elementary Education. I went to the University of Iowa first. I was doing Special Ed and Elementary Ed. I was less than a year away from graduating and I did my student teaching and everything and I decided, I really like it but it wasn’t what I want to wake up and do every morning. So I left Iowa with like 12 credits left to graduate and came to Milwaukee, applied to MIAD and started all over again.

Did you grow up in Iowa?

No, I just went to the University of Iowa. I grew up in Whitefish Bay and a lot of people went to Iowa from there. So when I went to MIAD and they said, alright so what’s in your portfolio? And I’m like, I don’t have one, I’ve never taken an art class. They gave me a list to take: do some photography, do some painting, do these things. I came back with a portfolio that fall and they let me in and so I started all over and did graphic design. So I was 21-22 when I started at MIAD, out of 110 credits (from Iowa), like 12 transferred. It was like I literally started over. So I took a couple of months off and bartended at Fluid, which is why it was fun when it (my design) went in that place. I was like, ‘that’s my neighborhood!’ So I bartended and I was a high school swim coach and I worked at a bank and so I did that in between and then started at MIAD. So I was 27 when I graduated.

Oh, that’s not bad at all!

No, no, it’s perfect! I thought I was letting go of all the teaching and it’s amazing how much that’s come back into my life because I am a mentor at Islands of Brilliance.

I want to hear all about the ‘Big, Giant Hugs’ though, because you said you started signing all of your messages ‘Big, Giant Hugs’ and I’m interested where that came from.

My nieces and nephews called me the BFG, the big, friendly giant, and so that just always stuck. Then many years ago I just started signing my posts “Big, Giant Hugs” and it was a play on giving giant hugs from a giant and they’re big and all of that. I struggled with mental health for a long time of clinical depression and anxiety and with learning how to live and strive with that and embracing it versus fighting that, I’ve just embraced this mindset of always trying to put positivity out into the world. Always assume best intent, always give that person the benefit of the doubt and try to live life as fully and as positively as possible. So when this came about I thought, what a cool opportunity to put that message out in the city. It’s just one more way that in a small way, in a simple way to give people joy. I want to make people happy when they see something. It’s funny I actually wrote a blog post on my site about the piece because ironically, as an out, gay married man I never thought about Pride when I was creating that piece. It was just about simply spreading joy.

I didn’t know you were gay either, I thought you were straight and then after you told me and we were releasing it at Pride I felt bad because I didn’t want you to feel that we were putting you in a box or that this is just how it is.

So it’s funny, when you put art out in the world, you’re kinda writing this contract that I’m releasing anything about it and never, ever did I think, this has to do with Pride or anything. It was just a play off the 80’s like Rainbow Brite, Carebears. I just wanna make this big thing that makes people happy.

I’m such an advocate for the gay community, or the LGBTQ community. I’ve grown up and all my friends, my best friend was bisexual. I don’t know, I feel weird talking about it because I know as an ally it’s weird because you can support but you’re not actually in the community so it’s actually hard to talk about it sometimes because you sound like this type of person talking about it. I want to be able to talk about it though, because all my closest friends around me identify, all the people around me and I’ve built a family around me and I just want to be able to talk about it.

We all bring our experiences to the table, whether you’re gay, straight, ally. I think it’s all our life experiences we bring together and the more we do that, the fewer differences.

I think that’s been the hard part, as time goes on, it feels like things are becoming more boxed up. It’s like things are really opening up but as things open up there seems to be more boxes. I’m like, oh man, I don’t want to be closed off from people, I don’t want to feel awkward to talk to people, like your identity is this, so now I have to talk to you like this. I get social anxiety just talking to people sometimes. I’m like I don’t know how to not offend you anymore so I’m just not going to say anything.

You know what I always say, I’m just going to talk and then I’ll learn if I offended you, like I can apologize and then I’ll learn and I can do better next time, but otherwise I do think we’re in a time of such political correctness where everything has to be perfectly said and you know what? That’s not how we live, that’s not who we are and everything in society, I’m just a big believer in the pendulum theory. For 21 years I was living in the closet and so my pendulum was waaayyy up over here and when I came out it swuuunngg to the other side and I was ouuuuttt! But eventually that pendulum slows down and eventually settles in the middle and I’m just me and that becomes a part of my identity, but a small part of my identity, there’s so much more. I think the same happens in society on everything and while we get more rights and more open to talking about it that pendulum swings to the otherside where everything needs to be perfect and eventually, hopefully it comes to that middle point where it’s like okay, now we’re just people and we can talk. I think right now, especially in the LGBTQ community we keep adding letters ‘Q’, ‘A’ and all these things, I think it does become more difficult, and it does become, even within our community more segmented, more segregated because we have all these more identifications and for a long time the ‘G’ was a really big part of my identity, it was how I identified and then, like I said, yeah, I’m Matt, and I’m gay, but before I’m gay: I’m an artist, I’m a community member, I’m a creative person, I’m a compassionate community member. All of that is who I am inside of me is this little corner piece that’s like oh, and by the way I have a husband and I like guys. I think eventually as things come to the middle, hopefully we can have more conversations. It’s an amazing part of society right now, there’s as many straight people at Pride now as there are gay people. The need for gay bars, you know I worked for 8 years in a gay bar and I loved that community, it was a safe place for us, but I also think it’s awesome that gay bars are becoming less and less necessary, like we can just start going to bars. It’s an interesting time that we’re in, but yeah, I think the less we can worry about all the labels and crap, the more we can just be human beings and community members.

Have you ever seen Broad City?

Yeah, I think we watched the first episode and we realized, ya know, I don’t know if this is for us, but we need to watch more episodes, actually give it a shot.

Well, you know, the one girl though, she says, she’s like, whatever in the future everyone’s going to be queer and brown anyways, and I was like, I love that!! Because it’s true! Because eventually it feels like everything will become completely homogenized and that’s where harmony will just exist because the differences won’t matter anymore and we’ll just be able to experience the energy of a person. Whatever the person is bringing to the table, you can just be with that person.

And there’s such beautiful aspects though, to holding onto what makes us so unique and different, not just having pride in your sexuality, but your heritage and other cultures. So as it becomes more homogenized but hold onto those things that make us unique and different, then we can just get to that point where we start embracing the differences. Everyone is so afraid of the differences but if we start talking and sharing stories, that’s why I’m so open about my mental health and all those things, the more we share the things we’re scared to talk about, the less scary they become and the more we realize we’re not alone. We’re so much more alike than we are different and so just like I put me being gay in a little corner pocket of my identity, I think all those things that we think are differences, if we put those things in with with all the things that make us united and similar it would be a little corner pocket of those differences, but that’s what we focus on and by focusing on those differences, that’s how we keep things being scary and unknown. It’s like holy crap, there’s this world of stuff that makes us all the same.

I think of it as though the light has been broken almost and everything is coming out, but in the way it’s coming out everything is being boxed up but then that only happens for so long because that’s just the first step.

Yeah, because now we have to figure out what to do with it.

Yeah, because now you have a voice and communities are finally having a voice and it’s like, we never had this voice before and so now all the anger that you’ve suppressed over all this time comes out and it becomes all these boxes, but then like you said, the pendulum swings and everything opens up again and it’s all fine.

As you’re saying that I have this picture of, so we put everything in boxes because we’re moving into a new house. So you pack up your house and we’re moving in and we’re in this new house and we have to figure out where to put all the stuff that we put into those boxes, that’s going to come out of boxes.

It’s true though, because there’s always these huge transitions in life and you come out a completely different person, like for me I’ve been through a lot of huge transitions in my life and I feel like I never feel like the same person on the other side, like I don’t feel like I’m the same person but internally I experience things the same way.

It’s really easy, it seems relentless, it’s like okay, when is that…

Yeah, when does it stabilize?

Yeah, but in between all those moments have been beautiful, positive life changing things as well. It’s finding that balance and being able to continue seeing those things. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the negative things that are happening in your life, but if you can just focus on the positive all of a sudden things just become more sustainable and okay. Just like I was saying the differences and similarities of people and how we focus on those differences, there is so much more, usually, you can find more positive things than negative, even when we’re at our lowest. It is unreal, in the darkest lowest times, you can still find something to be grateful for, but those things are really powerful. That bus shelter that I designed is meant as the most simplest thing to give someone a little joy in their day. I mean, when we went to see it I couldn’t believe how vibrant it was, especially when the sun hits it from behind. It’s unbelievable! It’s awesome, in that neighborhood it brings on, I mean, location and timing brought on a whole other meaning to it, but at its core, the most simplest thing was, I want to make someone smile.

That’s what my friend Bob said, he said, Libby, I saw that piece in Walker’s Point lights up, you have to choose pieces that are vibrant like that because when the sun hits them from behind it creates this whole other experience and I was like, yeah, I saw Gloria’s piece and when the sun hit it from behind, I called it rainbow diamonds, it looks like the shelter itself is glowing.

That’s what was fun when we went down and saw it. People were sitting in the Big, Giant Hugs one and they had color on their faces. It literally was lighting them up, it was really beautiful.

And that gives this whole other realm to your piece then, that it’s en-wrapping them in this hug of color, this warm, colorful hug.

It’s funny, you asked, have you ever been an artist? But I’ve always thought of myself as a designer, but recently, in the last couple of years, embracing art over just design so I’ve been playing around with different explorations of what does it mean to not just always be designing, but to create things just as they are? So professionally, I’m always trying to communicate, there’s always certain guidelines and what are you trying to communicate through a piece, but to create for creations sake is also pretty cool.

I think that’s the rawest form of art, like that’s what it’s supposed to be, to just create and not judge it, like not come from a judging place and for me, in my own art, I’m always critiquing it. I can get lost in it and create but then I hear my friends, like, oh what are you doing getting into art? Isn’t that for people that are actually good at it? And it’s like, how would I get good at it, if I didn’t try?

That’s why that little boy that would go with his dad’s briefcase and sell drawings for five cents, that’s why I stopped. I think it was Brené Brown, she talks about how kids freely create, like as a child you will just draw and do whatever you do, until that first moment that somebody gives you a critique and somebody tells you that it’s good, but what about this, or that shouldn’t look like that and all of a sudden you start questioning yourself and you begin that whole thing of self doubt and personal judgement. That moment when you start to judge your own work is a huge thing to get over. I mean even that piece I submitted to the project, it’s super simple, is it going to be enough? Is it art? Is it design? Does it matter? It’s all those things and that’s why until the last minute I was submitting I was like, you know what, I’m just going to submit it, who cares? I mean, I made it, why not put it out there, but I had a lot of self doubt for it, that’s why when I got that email saying we loved it and it was selected, that to me was a huge change in how I see myself and what I’m doing. It’s an interesting thing in any creative endeavour. I think in the profession of design you learn that you have to be able to critique and you have to be able to receive those critiques and be able to not take it personal, but when it is something that’s more in that line with art, then all of a sudden it does become personal because it comes from a personal place. I would think most creatives struggle with this because it’s such a subjective thing, but when you turn that off and create just to create it, suddenly it becomes such a beautiful thing.