The wheelchair cowboy sculptor you need to see

I came hardwired to be a cowboy, so growing up on a ranch was a nice fit. A beautiful sculpture of a horse, perfectly proportioned, created from nothing but scrap metal. Sculptor Matt Clark took a look at the same discarded metal and saw potential. With his talent, skill, and hard work, he gave that material new purpose, meaning, and new life. It was a valuable work of fine art. The legs in that rebar came from a demolished bridge up in Belleville. It is the story of his own life. So I love to pull that which has been deemed of no value. That's kind of a symbol of what happened to me, but then create a whole different entity out of it. You always put a smile on a spider or you are not selling it. Clark was a 17-year-old high school rodeo star whose life forever changed. I was thinking I was going to be world's champion cowboy someday. He crawled under his pickup truck and the truck rolled. Yeah, my arms didn't work at first after the injury. Not at all, right? Not at all. I could do that, right there. Doctors were anything but encouraging. Our recommendation going forward and we're unanimous that you should check into a rest home and you'll probably live three years. So that was 45 years and seven months ago. That's exactly what happened to his young roommates in his hospital spinal ward. I was lost. I didn't know what to do, but I started paying attention to what not to do. Matt refused to take the pain medication his roommates became addicted to. All my roommates died within three years. They became addicted to drugs and committed suicide. And then once they're shaped, I'll start a twisting process to twist it all up so it resembles like a grapevine. We got a little bundle of grapes here. And the wisdom of a Zen master, whose wife was Matt's nurse, was a huge influence. So we had good talks, and I remember this so vividly. It was a Sunday evening. She came in and started the therapy session. I still could not get up out of bed. And she goes, you know, I told my husband all about you and what your dreams were in life and what you were doing. And here's the message from the Zen master. In spite of what's happened to you and what you've been told, if you will learn how to become your own best friend and listen and follow the voice of your heart, you will do things that amaze many people. Matt took the advice and the prophecy came true. Zen Master was saying, you have a voice and it's yours. It's no one else's. And if you can learn to dial into it, it'll be a guidance in your life. And his parents, who lived 300 miles away from his hospital, were the rock that saw Matt through his darkest days. They were there continually, and they adopted the attitude, we're going to try whatever we can. Because I talked to them later, they go, the amount of suffering you were going through, we couldn't stand. We couldn't spiritually stand it. And their protocol and agenda, they were telling us, there was no hope for you. You probably won't even live through rehab. So they created a support system that was powerful, and they had battles with the doctors. That's called Sunstone Totem. And the Clarks ignored the doctors. Two and a half months in ICU, six months on the spinal ward, I could barely sit up. I could barely push a chair with pegs that stuck out on it when it was time to leave the hospital. and they asked me, what are your expectations? I said, well, we're going to go home and set up our own therapy on the porch. I want to learn how to drive a pickup. I want to go to college. So I'm going to do everything I can to build a life where I can be independent, which the doctor got angry at me and said, none of that's going to happen. It's our consensus here. But it did happen. Matt went home and worked out day after day to rebuild his strength. Then started welding again, a skill he learned in high school. Three years after leaving the hospital, instead of dying, Matt was living on his own, driving his own pickup truck and doing freelance welding jobs. And this is old trampoline frames that I'm going to build horses out of. Anybody that works with metal is always going to have a pile of scrap. So those are horses in process. And that was the name. That's just scrap. That's just junk to throw away. Well, one day I was bored, and this is a transition. I'm looking at the pile of scrap and I shifted. I didn't see junk and scrap. I saw shape. I saw some cool shapes. I pulled them out. I didn't reshape them. I welded a little dinosaur. I still have it in my studio. Weeks later, when my mother came by, she goes, where'd that come from? Scrap that I welded up. She goes, no, that's not scrap. That's art. And you're good at it. Why don't you do more? So that's kind of the, you know, when your mother lies to you, you're good at something just to encourage you. That was kind of the start to this art career. A hobby for 10 years, Matt left his admin job at a local college in 1997 to do art full-time. I quit the cushy, full-benefit job to go on the roller coaster ride of being a professional artist. I don't regret it. Growing up on a ranch, Matt's work is both Western and very eclectic, a reflection of the deep interest in philosophy he's pursued since his accident. So that's why my art, there's always the broken, discarded piece. It's the same kind of path and journey. These pieces were once excelling at what they were created to do and then deemed by the expert of no more value and thrown away. So people say, you're a recycling artist. I go, no, I'm not a recycling artist. I'm a spiritual artist. How about that? And even though horses are a painful reminder of the life he once lived, I have such a connection to them from my cowboy life. they're also a favorite subject. It's a double-edged sword because it's extremely painful to be in that game to create what used to be my best friends. But they're a great feeling and accomplishment when I feel like I hit the essence of that horse and it can take on its own spirit. So I don't avoid that experience. I just integrate it into me, both the pain and the joy. There are yin and the yang. I have chronic pain in my back and hips. And navigating the pain he lives with every day. I've never overcome anything. It's a daily navigating that darkness. Sometimes it's hourly. Sometimes it's by the minute. His creations are the product of what Matt calls his process. Even if I'm super sick, I will at least get up and get in my studio and do something, and it's a conscious shift into creativity. That's what I mean when I say that's my antidote to the darkness. And if people didn't buy my work, I would still create if I want to stay here. Back here is my farm kid gate. Every component in that gate is a memory of growing up on the farm and ranch back here. He's going, where's the food? Matt's get-her-done ranch kid upbringing has played an important role in his incredible story. Waiting for somebody to show up to help you might not ever, they might not ever show up. So, yeah, I was raised kind of that. And maybe that was an asset to get through the initial stages of my spinal cord injury. I've started creating a line of cactuses, the lizards, some owls. Today it is Utah Home and Studio with wife Adele and son Logan, who is also an artist Matt continues creating and has no plans to ever stop. After I broke my back, second time these vertebrae all broke and collapsed, and the most kind, well-meaning people that I've known for decades told me, man, you've done your game. You've done this for 40 years. This is a good time to retire, you know, like hint, hint, you can't come back from that. Well, that just motivated me more because they don't understand that my process, my creative process, the one that I have built myself and build a world here to support that process, that process is so powerful to me. If I can't go do process, I need to leave this realm. It's my antidote to my darkness.