hi, my name is matty

retrospective

i was born and raised down in south FL. i'm a self-proclaimed artist, enthusiast, and visionary. i've been drawing from as far back as i can remember (approx. 2009) and have been a somewhat semi-professional freelance artist since mid-2018.

i'm a transmasculine individual (he/they pronouns) and have been on T since october of 2020. i haven't wittled down my gender to anything specific. i am what i feel, and i like it that way.

i have a growing multitude of interests; some major ones that helped make me into who i am today would be: Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokémon, Steven Universe, Undertale, a small handful of anime (Soul Eater, Naruto, BNHA, Evangelion), breakcore, old 2000s internet culture, and the furry fandom.

beginning

i remember my childhood as if it were some prolonged fugue state. as in, i don't. i have always been more timid and reserved than others my age, and i wasn't interested in much things that everyone else would deem as normal. during recess, my class went outside and played baseball while i hung around trees and pretended to be a cat—that kind of stuff.
to my knowledge, the very first fandoms i were really in were the Sonic the Hedgehog and Warrior Cats fandom, as i have kept really poorly made drawings i made from when i was young (elementary school age) of the characters.

around this time is when i finally had gained access to the family computer, and it wasn't long until i had stumbled upon DeviantArt culture, my first taste of the online art community. i wasn't very involved in the community yet per-se, and for various reasons including this i wasn't very prominent as an individual on the internet apart from consuming the content i enjoyed then.

then

at around age 13, i gave in to some much-repressed frustrations and came out as trans to my immediate family. this was the beginning of a lot of pain that would last for a very long time, even now. they were not accepting of me in the very beginning of my transition, fueling the ever-growing depression i was already afflicted with.
around that same time, i joined an online group-chat consisting of a few guys of the same age, all of which who were Homestuck fans (as was i, at the time). for the first time in my life, i felt included in a friend group, i could be vulnerable, and i was finally being treated like a boy.

my teen years were something i dreaded for a very long time. being forced to socialize with others and the fear of peer-driven ridicule was not something i liked thinking about very much. i had gotten involved with people i shouldn't have been with, and in turn was hurt pretty badly, causing multiple mental health crises and a lot of trauma that i still deal with to this day.

throughout highschool was the time i was most involved in the DeviantArt and Instragram art communities, which is where i started to develop my art and following. i finally was able to apply myself and create things that made me and others feel good, which i feel is the whole point of my art journey. i also realized as i gained different interests and followed different artists that i wasn't tied down to the emo dog community, and i could draw and create so much more than just that.

now

i enjoy art more and more every day, and see my work as an extension of myself. like my art, i'm ever-evolving, never in one definitive state for any extended amount of time. i've had a lot of shortcomings throughout my life; i've hit several rock-bottoms, i've been unkind towards others, i've been unstable, wishy-washy, selfish, and generally imperfect. but i feel like without all my past mistakes, past friendships, memories, and failures, i would not have grown into the person i am today. i am grateful for many of the things i have today, a bountiful career, a beautiful and loving partner, but i am most thankful for my past for giving me the strength to keep going.