PRESENT:

I compose systems the way a maestro scores tension—layering attracting opposites into harmonic counterpoint. Not to resolve, but to resonate. Faith and science, ritual and accessibility, critique and onboarding—they’re my instruments. I orchestrate modular formats that turn dissonance into movement, crafting emotionally paced frameworks that modulate across registers of personal harmony and social progress. Rupture isn’t noise—it’s rhythm. Each framework is a remixable score, stewarding legacy without flattening nuance. I don’t write jingles. I write symphonies for uptake.

PAST:

JSMatteson’s past 12 years of experience include:

MFA & BFA (summa cum laude) academic

art museum education curator, assistant, & docent

public school substitute art & graphic design teacher

private school art & photography instructor

STE(A)M summer camp director

university studio art & art history instructor

community college guest speaker/lecturer

public art acquisition committee member

art gallery programmer & preparator

artist-in-residence (AIR)

art competition winner & juror

published terminal thesis & art journal submissions

“Art is the sensuous presentation of ideas.” – G.W.F. Hegel

“To study one artistic medium in isolation from others is to study an inadequacy…partly because the artists themselves insisted again and again upon the inextricability of the arts.” – Daniel Albright

“Fine art, by its very name, implies fine relations.” – Arthur Wesley Dow

"I do not want art for a few, anymore than I want education for a few, or freedom for a few..." – William Morris

“A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection―not an invitation for hypnosis.” – Umberto Eco

"It is, though, an ironic truth that the moment when art claims to be 'above' contemporary life is always the moment it becomes controlled by it." – Alastair Mackintosh

"This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well." – Paulo Freire