Matt grew up on a small farm in rural Montana. He attended Eastern Montana College, now known as MSU - Billings and graduated with a BA in Art with a concentration in ceramics.  Several years later, he went back to earn his teaching certificate to teach art. Matt accepted a job teaching art K-8 in Big Piney Wyoming and taught there twenty-eight years until retirement in 2024.

Matt has focused on ceramics most of my life. Through college, he helped his mom with her hobby ceramics and worked at a ceramic shop. Since college, he has shown and entered art shows locally and regionally. He started doing pottery with a leaf pattern about 20 years ago after noticing a leaf in a puddle of water that had frozen over. The details in the leaf were amazingly beautiful. He then wondered if he could incorporate that same image into pottery.