Interviews and Articles

Balancing a Lopsided Act

Date created: July 2004
Word count: 4,462 words
First published in its entirety: Portsmouth Herald, October 2004
Excerpted in the following magazines:

• Mamm Magazine (cover feature, fall 2008)
• The Women's Times (fall cover story 2006)
• More Magazine (fall 2005)
• Tattoos for Women (fall 2004)

Description: The utilization/art of tattoos to camouflage scars and deflect deformities. Matuschka's personal account of her first tattoo at age 13 to years later designing a large floral arrangement to disguise a scar after major surgery in 2003.

Excerpt:
I never wanted a tattoo. Not even after I booked the session, using the false ID I stole at the local Roller Rink in the summer of '68. "You wanna straddle a Harley Davidson, you have to show your colors. Tattoos are part of the game. You gonna get your man's name engraved on your belly or not?" dared my girlfriend Nona who just had "Goose" inscribed on her tummy the week before.

And, many years later:

Many artists often take their own experience of pain- whether it is emotional or physical- by turning it into a visual crusade and incorporating their 'illness' into their work. Artists such as Frieda Kahlo come to mind, as she confronted her injury, she seemed to have transcended it in the creative process. Images often point to remedies and helps culture often revise their preconceived ideas about disease and body image.

Out of Arizona

Date created: July 2006
Type: Excerpt from Autobiography
Word count: 6,775 words
First published: October 2008
Editor: Samuel Nyal Henrie
Title: Uncommon Education, The History and Philosophy of Prescott College, 1950 through 2006
Publisher: Wheatmark

Description: Matuschka's second year in college - applying as a black person to obtain a scholarship. Eventually this ruse - and her relationship with Prescott College years later - inspires the artist to create a series entitled "Don't Globalize This" (circa 2001).

Excerpt:
In 1973 seventy-eight percent of students attending the nation's public schools were white and 22 percent were minorities, which meant that college enrollment consisted of even a higher percentage of the Caucasian tribe. Back then the word minority was a category that primarily included Blacks and Hispanics, though on all federal applications, there was the proverbial slot for "other."

Terminating discrimination and segregation (which eventually led to minorities being quicker to get scholarships than whites) was a part of my eras 'social responsibility' and many of its leaders developing programs to unite people of all colors.

Back in the seventies you were either black or white, or even less so, Hispanic. There wasn't even an option for Native American or Alaska Native.

And so after some deliberation, I taped the self-portrait to the application of myself depicted as a stressed out queen of the African jungle, pointed my pen to the line that said 'other', and for racial profiling, I checked that box and scribbled in "Mixed Media."

American Beauty

Date published: 2005-2007

Type: Interview
Word count: 2,926 words
First published: on the web at fashionpagez.com
Printed in the following magazines:

• Jalouse (Russia 2006)
• Crawford ID (Greece 2007)
• Pictures: The Artist as a Young Model/Democracy

Description:
A conversation with the eccentric artist about the failures of America, the relationship to mother, the environment, Gender Identity, Democracy and Pain; these are only a few of the ideas that she explores through her unconventional aesthetic.

Excerpt:
"Lets talk about the most important theme in your art today: Gender Identity... What would you say the most significant difference between men and women?"
"Hormones. Next would be relationship to mother."

About fashion... "How important has it been in your life?"
"Fashion does help the truly imaginative mix and match to perfect an individual style. A world without fashion is like a world without art. But fashion can not define who you are or what you are about. It can only assist you in being creative. Fashion comes and goes, but art stays forever. Like Goethe said: Art is long."

"Your motto once read: 'We're practicing politics without principle, science without humanity and medicine without logic'... Do you still feel that way?"
"...Another line to ad to the verse is 'the things that will destroy us is corporation without conscience.' Some areas of science and medicine have improved, but the political and corporate climate has taken a deep dive into the quick sand."

Case Re-Examined

Date published: 2004
Type: Interview
Word count: 6,471
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Editor/Iinterviewer: Jennifer Peterson
Book Title: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

Excerpts:
Being nice doesn't always pay off, and often being outrageous does.

I had to get out there and protest. Perhaps subconsciously, underneath it all I thought I would die - like my mother had, of this disease when she was 41. Maybe I felt I really needed to work, make a contribution tothe cause; if I was going to go down, certainly it would be in full protest and in fighting flaming color.

My portraits were intentionally designed to attract people to look at them. First they see the beauty, then they see the truth, and then they can read the message.