R.I.P. Rip Matteson

What do you do with your tributes, your grief, the flood of memory and clarion understandings that arrive when mortality claims a loved one, with the need for the comfort and community of the others left floating in his wake, when there is no memorial? I have struggled with that for almost a year now. My beloved mentor, Rip Matteson, died on April 22, 2011. Yesterday was the reception for his last exhibit at the Carmel Art Association—it is his retrospective, falling on the one-year anniversary of his death—and then the association will drop him from its ranks.
When I heard from Rip’s wife, right after he died, that there would be no memorial, that he had been insistent on the point, I felt my heart drop—like the last quarter in a vending machine that’s going to spit out something very bad. It wasn’t just the evaporation of that image of gathering loved ones, but what it told me of Rip’s frame of mind at the end that saddened me.
He had lived longer than he wanted to. He had been a vigorous man, in remarkable health until maybe six or seven years before his death, and he was intolerant of living compromised. When he first began having problems with his eyes, with sleeping, with balance, with his blood pressure, with swallowing, with driving and then walking—he absolutely hated the restrictions, the experience of himself as diminished–and I remember feeling certain he would simply opt out. I prepared myself for it. And then it didn’t happen. He adjusted: to each new medication, each new routine. He submitted to the tests and the solutions and the regimens, all of it growing more and more time consuming, more demanding of his attention, more intrusive on his life. The day he died, I realized with absolute clarity that he had taken this long road, this slow, painful decline, for us—mostly, I think, for Rosary, his wife—so that we could adjust, could see him disappearing, aid him in his exit, and truly know he was gone when he was gone.
But I also think forcing himself to take that long, slow, progressively humiliating journey took its toll. Rip was one of the sanest people I have ever known. His impulses were generous, his grievances were thought out and mastered. He was almost courtly in his demeanor; he was giving, liberal with his knowledge and experience, thoughtful in his interactions. His optimism, his ability to renew and reinvigorate his artistic vision, again and again, with the wonder of a child and the focus of an old master, was inspiring, wonderful. In the last years, I saw a fissure in his composure, a sort of resentment of his place in the artistic cosmos…and I felt that his decline had colored his view of his own work, his own place, made that too seem diminished. It seemed he judged himself not worthy of memorial.
Not that there isn’t every reason to resent the “art world”—it’s a ridiculous construct, and it embraces very few—but Rip never really pursued the approbation of the “art world.”  He didn’t move to New York or Los Angeles, his work was not radical or game-changing or controversial or constructed of bold new materials or forms such that it would mark out unique territory for him. He was not a self-promoter, his ego did not overwhelm all obstacles in his path or demand a forum. He chose to have a family, partnership, a stable home, a career in academics—he chose to make absolutely beautiful “pictures,” as he liked to call them. He kept his inspiration close to home, creating beautiful relationships with a wide range of people as he either taught them to paint or seduced them with his genteel admiration into becoming subjects–in all his actions, he chose to be close to home, to make beautiful work and beautiful interactions that made a more beautiful world…maybe with a small reach, but an unquestionably worthy one. His approach was like an art version of the Hippocratic oath: first, do no harm.
And yet he dreamed of ending up in the museums and history books. Every year or so, he would re-evaluate his work, examine his beliefs and tastes, write manifestos for himself, artistic to-do lists, establish new goals, find new ways to energize his commitment to his work. In my opinion, the work changed very little—it always came back to a very similar style, approach, subject matter, treatment. But what amazed and inspired me was that this frail old man never allowed himself to succumb to boredom, to go to sleep, to check out…even when he felt he had fallen into auto-pilot in his work…he would find a way to refocus, to challenge himself, to continue working, to face the tedium of repetition, the always-looming terror of inadequacy, of failing to meet one’s own dreams and expectations and potential, and he would get back to it. Over and over again right up to the last week of his life.
So there are many, many things I could—and should—say about Rip Matteson. They have been with me over the decade-plus of our exchange, they have been at the forefront of my mind, in my tears and silence over the last year. So I believe I will try to give them voice over the next couple of months, because I was given an extraordinary gift in this man. It was sheer dumb luck that brought a steelworker’s daughter from Montana into intimate conversation with this great soul, this well-educated academic, this remarkable vessel of knowledge and spirit and humanity. Our work was very dissimilar–oil paint was really the only bonding agent–but the very differences allowed me to come up against and articulate what I was, in contrast to what he was. My work with him as a model gave me an inside track to that experience, and supplemented in important ways what I knew about getting at character from theater with what it was to be a “subject”–and helped me to work out the approach to and relationship with the people I paint to create the experience and the painting that I want. His struggles with the limitations of his choices, the way he reevaluated and always arrived back at an acceptance and embrace of the life he had chosen taught me that there is struggle and compromise and reward, no matter which path you choose. So I will try to break out a few of the lessons I learned from him and share them here.
I guess I am now officially a member of the modern world, because, to answer my own question: what do you do with your tributes when there is no memorial? You blog.

5 Comments

  1. I loved Rip’s work. It was my first target whenever in the Carmel Art Assoc. So sad I did not seek him out. He had a special voice that really touched me. Am now looking to buy one of his pieces. Chuck Olsen

    1. Ah, I am so glad to hear that, Chuck. He did indeed have a special voice. I believe Rip is no longer carried at the Carmel Art Association, but I will send you the contact information for his wife, Rosary. I’ll put it in a private email. She can provide you with information regarding his available work. Please give her my best when you talk with her.

  2. Rip and Rosary were neighbors of my family’s since I was in my early teens….50 now… so that’s a few years…My first more intimate interaction I had with him was for his help and guidance in my producing and putting together a portfolio of my work. I was thinking of switching colleges at the time and move into commercial art/packaging… I was just a freshman when working on this project and I always knew that I wanted to do art…that could be used…though I had a background that included photography. Well, I didn’t get into that program, but it left me to find furniture making, which I did for 30 years. I loved the entire process, but mostly the idea coming into fruition…. I called my work “Creative Blue Collar Work”. Rip and I started to write letters when I first moved away from the San Francisco Bay Area to rural SE Utah. I wrote to him at the age of 26, about the process of my buying 5 acres with a sad little house on it…poorly built and unfinished, no water or electricity. “MY little dump.” He heard of my adventures as a white water river guide and trying to make my house livable and building my shop in the off season…. He wrote back about living vicariously through my adventures, always encouraging and illustrated the letters with cartoons of the images that my letters invoked in his mind. He wrote of his thoughts on where he was artistically. I have all of the letters he wrote to me, all of his cartoon Christmas cards. I am also lucky to have sat for him when he said he was “stuck” in his work….at 82 years old. He said I could keep my clothes on….hehe…(for those who don’t know his work he did mostly nude figure painting….but not exclusively.) I have that portrait. He gave it to me as a gift. I think of him when looking at it. I gave him and Rosary a cutting board that I made. It still sits on their large chopping block in their kitchen…used regularly. (That pleases me) I am also lucky to have 2 of his small nudes that he and Rosary gave to me as a wedding present. (first marriage). They sat on the shelves above my desk with my design books for 15 years. (Now living in a new location.) I look forward to picking out another piece of his when I next see Rosary…for my 2nd wedding gift from Rosary. I really appreciate Rosary’s thoughtfulness and generosity with this gift. I can’t think of a better gift as he was such a dear man and gifted artist. I miss our letter exchanges. It means a lot to me to have a few of his pieces…. to have just a bit of Rip in my life everyday. I am glad he is no longer struggling with the aging process as the last number of years were challenging for him. I never missed a visit to see him and Rosary whenever I went back to see my parents. What a loss for Rosary. Visiting her is still on my “must do” list when I return to the area. Won’t miss those. Yes…Rip above all was a wonderful human being…missed MUCH by those who knew him well. He will live on in my heart.

  3. Thank you for your “blog”. I have a dozen or more pieces of Rip’s paintings and am an avid fan of his work. I always intended to ask him to paint my daughters but never got around to getting that done. When I saw Rosarie last, I discovered a painting that Rip painted of me. I remember the showing at their home and how he seemed to be studying the few of us that were there. I always felt that he saw the beauty in the ordinary and conveyed that in his art.

    1. I felt that too, Elaine: that he absorbed the beauty around him and brought it to life in his work. He was such an appreciator. I still find it hard to believe that he is no more. How lucky for you that you have his art around you–the best way to remember him.

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