Matt Hiller studied studio art with a concentration in ceramics at the University of Wisconsin Stout in Menomonie, a few hours from his hometown Marshfield, Wisconsin. In 2013, after four years in University he took a seasonal job at a fish processing plant in Dillingham, Alaska where he fell in love with the state. It took Matt a couple of years and a few other jobs to be able to leave the lower 48 again and make the permanent move to Alaska in 2016. With no specific destination in mind, his travels North led him to a raw piece of land south of Talkeetna, Alaska where he began building his home and studio.
Matt has a passion for creating, a love of different materials, and is interested in the challenge of manipulating the materials through different processes. His focus is currently on clay and wood. Not only do the materials and processes influence each other, they are occasionally unionized in the form of mixed media art. Matt draws inspiration from the natural world he is immersed in and from process itself through the physical work we do, the marks we make as humans, and the marks left from generations before us. He finds interest in the conversation that is created through the making and use of both specialized and primitive tools. The forms, subject matter, patterns, and decorations seen in his work are derived from the immediate surroundings and close relationship to the natural world of his off-the-grid, meditative, and handmade lifestyle in the woods.
Humans have a natural tendency to create with their hands and through the use of tools and clay acts as a medium to document very specific movements and gestures of an exact time and place so to prove our existence. I am captivated by the highly functional nature and relative permanence of ceramics. I approach the use of tools as a collaboration between craftsperson and the tool itself. The constant action and re-action to manipulate form and create texture should be viewed as a dance and the rhythm is documented on the surface.
Because of this it is important that the clay and glaze I use accepts and accentuates the marks from hands and tools. The forms, subject matter, and patterns I use are influenced by my lifestyle and extracted from my immediate surroundings and close relationship to the natural world.
I make handmade functional ceramic forms as I am interested in the human connections and relationships that can form between maker and user in a way that manufactured products cannot. As the user invites my work into their life, space, and daily rituals I hope to influence conversations both interpersonal and in the form of self-reflection. The tactile nature of clay, the forms, and their functions lend themselves to creating these intimate relationships that I am interested in. I use color, texture, and decoration as catalysts for inward reflection and I intend for my marks to be used as quiet focal points or spaces to allow the user to escape the noisy world around them in a meditative way.