About Matt

I’ve got some irons in the fire. Some balls in the air. A few tricks up my sleeve. Some stuff on my plate.

I do things. Creative things. I draw, paint, write/produce music, play instruments, sing and write words for reading or singing. I’m also devastatingly handsome. Are you familiar with a certain Hollywood actor? The one in all the magazines? Yeah, that’s the one. Well, I’m way more handsome.

To live, I’ve been designing and building websites since 1996, when I graduated college with a graphic design degree (summa cum laude, son!). But I got my first design job in 1991 at a little newspaper called the News-Sun in Waukegan, IL. I mostly made print ads for banana sales at Jerry’s Foodway and the like.  We used computers! Sometimes! The application we used the most was Multi Ad Creator. Look it up, it’s a real thing! State of the art back then, and going strong from the looks of those shareware downloads.

I digress. Often.

After college I landed a job at Sierra On-Line (or Sierra Entertainment, if you prefer) designing websites for their home productivity line of software. Yeah, it wasn’t Leisure Suit Larry, but I did once have a meeting in Al Lowe’s office when the conference rooms were full. If you don’t know who Al Lowe is, congratulations, you aren’t a pervy dork.

Sierra folded for a while in 2002 (stupid 9/11 and subsequent economic crash), and I went to work for Ilium Associates – a small design firm in Bellevue – as a designer and all around Web Guy. I’m their secret weapon. When it’s hitting the fan there, technologically speaking, they say, they go, “Oh, shit! Get Matt!” And there I am.

I’m also a musician. I’ve played with several Seattle area bands, including indie psych-pop outfit Half Acre Day, whom I’ve been with since 1994. I also play with The Filthy Hypocrites, The Gigs of Ram, and am currently embarking on a solo venture The Enoch Karpenter Project while also working with Paul from HAD on an improvisational looping duo, Archaeologists Discover a Miracle.

I also own and operate MKUltra Studios, a recording and design studio in Puyallup, Washington. We recently relocated from Renton into this big, beautiful, purpose-built space, and it truly is amazing.

I’m’a put up all kinds of stuff here. In fact, I recently rediscovered a trove of old sketchbooks spanning the late 90s though the Oughts – vestigial survivors of a house fire we had in 2016. I thought it would be fun to resurrect these old, raw ideas and just throw them up here from time to time. 

At some point there will be music, animation, video and/or some combination of all the above. For now, I’m starting small… with this disturbing and crude drawing accompanied by a whimsical but disquieting short poem. Such is my wheelhouse. Enjoy!

A man with ears where his eyes should be
Pointed his fingery nose at me.