Unexpected Art in Unlikely Places

It's 9:10 a.m. Your Chem 5 exam is in five minutes, and you don't have time to race back to Harvard Square from the Science Center to buy a pen, a pencil or any sort of writing instrument. You are desperate. Your lab partner suggests the Science Center stockroom, a subterranean cornucopia of school supplies.

That's funny. You never noticed the weird geometric paintings hanging on the walls the last time you purchased computer discs there. Earl W. Matthews, proprietor of the Science Center stockroom, says few shoppers notice that it's his artwork on the drab, cinderblock walls.

Before your exam, check out these walls. They're covered with large, brightly colored paintings full of geometric shapes. And from the ceiling hang abstract mobiles of red, blue, and green--all created by this unassuming 28-year employee of Harvard.

With Buddha-like calm, the 52-year old Matthews has been manager of the Science Center stockroom since it opened in 1974. "I wasn't here too long before I saw the walls needed brightening," he says. So Matthews started bringing in his own multi-colored artworks--nearly a dozen--to decorate the coldly modernistic setting.

Always willing to chat about his art, Matthews keeps a photo album of his other work to show those who are really interested. But he is surprised by how many people come to the stockroom to buy computer discs or other office supplies, and don't notice the artwork. "It's amazing how little people see," he says.

A one-time champion boxer, this fighter-turned-artist runs the stockroom by himself, providing students and faculty with an inexpensive and aesthetically pleasing alternative to shopping in the Square. An artist without an agent or a gallery, Matthews' one man "show" in the stockroom is a well-kept artistic secret in an unusual place.

The Fighters, The Painters, And Me

Matthews came to Boston as a professional boxer in 1955. An All-Navy champion feather-weight, he fought professionally in the area for six years before working for Harvard. Matthews started boxing after watching a few matches when he was stationed in Guam. "I didn't think the fighters were that good. I thought I could do better, so I started training," he says. Matthews left Kansas because he had an uncle who was an ex-boxer here in Boston, but he wasn't able to make the money he wanted as a professional.

"As a fighter my biggest drawback was [that] I was a boxer, not a slugger. The crowds wanted knock-outs, blood and guts. I would go the distance and always out-point my opponent. Finally I hung up the mits. There was no money and I felt my health was more important."

Matthews says he has "always been interested in art--my school books were covered with drawings" although he did not start painting seriously until 1958. "A lot of athletes I've noticed end up as artists," he says. "I guess they like to work with their hands."

At his easel, Matthews has painted in many styles, ranging from figurative portraits to Jackson Pollack gesture paintings. But in the past fews, years he's been working on abstract investigations of the square, some of which hang on the stockroom walls. "What brought about the geometrical painting was a color theory course I took at the Art Institute. You can go on forever with this work," he says.

Disturbing Color Schemes

What confronts the customer at the stockroom counter is "16+5," a disturbing combination of bright purple and yellow, dull gold and dark purple lines. Five large squares emerge from a combination of the sixteen, hence the title.

Farther down the wall, the other large canvas, "Blue and Orange Combination" hangs majestic, a balanced four squares dominate the work. The different color placement and combination give the paintings wholly different movements and feelings. The repetition of the square--both within works and in the shapes of the canvas--make the paintings vibrate. "It is the color mixtures that gives a sense of movement and space," says Matthews.

Jared A. Silverman, a first year graduate student who had never been to the stockroom before, noticed "16+5" as he waited to purchase a printer ribbon. "I like the geometry of the paintings but I find the color scheme disturbing. The dark--is that black or purple?--is very disturbing. I would have hung the blue and orange one here instead," he says.

Of course, it was Matthew's intention to use the more disturbing painting to draw the viewer's eye to the wall. "I meant the painting to be disturbing," Matthews tells the science grad student.

Although he is still experimenting with different styles, the artist says for the time being he will continue to work with squares. "Looking at the designs, I get new ideas. I have books full of sketches. I just have to find the time to put them on canvas and the space to hang them," he says.

Although their derivation is not always obvious, Matthews has titles for most of the nonrepresentatioal works he does. "Some people don't see the titles in the works but they are there. The titles like the works themselves are variations on a theme. Another canvas immediately visible in the stockroom is a 36x36 inch work of muted blue, green, red and jet black. Housed in the square pattern are 16 fish. Some of the squares are divided into triangles, circles serve as eyes. The simple shapes form a complex pattern. One must look carefully for all the fish.

"I have a thing about fish," says Matthews. The title of the work is "Diez y Seis Peces"--Spanish for "16 Fish." Hanging nearby are two paintings that use the same shapes but different colors and combinations. They are "Juroppiki no Sakana I and II," which means "16 Fish" in Japanese.

Paintings to Play With

One of the special qualities about Matthews' paintings is that they can be hung in a variety of ways; upside down, sideways, and askew. One work hung as a diamond, the other a square. Even as he was showing the paintings, Matthews fiddled with their positions, rehanging both as squares. "See, it is a whole different picture," he says. "You get tired of paintings. With these you can hang them new ways to get new pictures. You can't do that with landscapes," Matthews, a collector himself, says.

Not all the paintings sell well, nor have they brought Matthews lasting fame, but that doesn't deter him. "It doesn't matter to me. I don't understand why some people like to say how much they pay for art. I buy what I like. I'll hang anything, I don't care if it goes with the couch. I buy it because I like to look at it, not as an investment," he says.

The Science Center stockroom has attracted student artists and scholars interested in Matthews' work. "We talk about art theory, art history, things like that. Once," he recalls, "a geology professor brought his class down to see my work when they were studying crystal structures."

When he's not selling notebooks and printer ribbons, Matthews is painting or taking courses. "I don't sleep much, I get up before five every day, so I have to keep busy. If you don't keep busy you just die," Matthews says. Besides art courses at the Boston Art Institute, the Cambridge Art Association, and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, he has taken courses in art history, anthropology and language at the Harvard Extension School. In his spare time he got an associates degree in business from Newbury Junior College.

More than taking courses, working, and even boxing, Matthews loves to travel. "If I had the money I'd spend the rest of my life traveling around the world meeting people," he says. As an amateur boxer in the Navy, he boxed from Guam to Japan fighting American, Japanese and Korean service men. Besides the All-Navy featherweight title, this tour gave Matthews has a special interest in the Far East, particularly China and Japan. He plans to take a trip to China in 1988. Matthews has gathered a list of more than 30 people to contact in China, most of whom he met because of his Science Center artwork.

Although he likes the exposure that the Science Center "gallery" provides, a major reason he brings work in is that he has no room for it at home. "I think it was Picasso," he says with a smile, "who bought chateaus to put his work in, when he filled one up he'd buy another. I don't have that kind of money, so I put my work here."

One of Matthews's favorite paintings is a Jackson Pollack painting he did in the late '60s. This painting, "Landscape with Woman" was chosen in the 1970 Da Vinci Open ArtCompetition to hang in the New York InternationalArt Show. The work now hangs in his home andalthough he often takes it with him to shows, hesays he never really intends to sell it.

Besides hanging his work in the stockroom, forthe past few years Matthews has had a show eachspring in Ticknor Lounge. During the summer monthshe travels with open air art shows. "I do at leasta dozen shows a season," the Dorchester residentadds. Responsibilities to his wife and two sonshave kept Matthews a full-time employee of theUniversity. "My family comes first. If it werejust me I'd be all over the world, but I have tosupport them, they come first," the Dorchesterresident says.

Matthews plans to paint for the rest of hislife. When his sons become independent, he may tryto show his work for a living. "I don't push mywork," he says, nor does he have an agent becausethe price increase of having an agent makes arttoo expensive for most people to afford, he says.

"I guess I'll have to go the gallery routeeventually. I probably could sell more that way.