How i found art

Through the Window to the Soul

It’s funny how one moment can change the course of a life. When I was four years old in Dayton, Ohio, our neighbors and friends, Edy and Louie Martin gave me an amazing gift. We were in their living room and they encouraged me to draw on a pad of newsprint. I drew a tiny race car on a giant piece of paper. I remember vividly their encouragement to draw that car bigger, and then bigger again. We went through the entire pad of newsprint and, while at that point I never understood why they wanted me to draw it larger than the page, they filled me. They filled me with the sense that I was important. That I was worth their time, their effort, their entire huge pad of paper! They also taught me that art itself is huge; much bigger than what can fit within the confines of a frame. I think about that moment often. It still brings tears to my eyes.

Throughout my childhood, I nurtured that love of art. I took every single art class offered in school. I took some at our local art institute. I loved it. I also loved the thought of helping people. At the end of high school, I had a big decision to make. I chose to pursue a career in medicine rather than art. I wouldn’t change that decision for anything, as I had an amazing twelve years as a doctor, met the love of my life Lori, had two amazingly beautiful children, and had an opportunity to share sacred moments in so many people’s lives. The moment when a first breath is taken; the moment when someone takes their last. Those sometimes wonderful, sometimes brutal times in between. I appreciate those moments. Those moments have no choice but to come out in my art.

An important time to me as a physician was when I walked through a patient’s door at the hospital or in my office. That split second when my eyes met the eyes of the patient and their family. Nothing had to be said. It was always there in their eyes. If I observed that look closely, I was then prepared to meet them where they were emotionally. It made all the difference.

The idea “it is always in their eyes” is so true also in art. If you look at my portraits, I hope you get the sense that the person is looking at you, seeing you, somehow communicating their thoughts, their feelings, their lives with you… That they are sharing that moment only with you.

Matt Fay