Rising Stars: Meet Matt Sage of Berthoud

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Sage.

Hi Matt, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was born and raised in Fort Collins. I grew up in the DIY music community there, playing in punk/noise/experimental/indie bands in house venues and DIY spaces along the Front Range starting when I was in high school. This continued through college; I also got a BA in Poetry from CSU in 2010. I continued to write, play music, make DIY releases and events, and pay my bills by washing dishes, making lattes, and moving furniture.

In 2014 I moved to Chicago to attend graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. My 2 years there were very formative to my creative practice. After I graduated, I began teaching in colleges in Chicago, primarily teaching academic writing with a focus on media studies and popular culture. During my 8 years in Chicago, I was plugged into the experimental and electronic music community, the jazz and improv culture there, and also the fine arts and DIY arts scenes. In most cases all these niche communities overlapped. My experiences in that arts and music landscape really helped me feel safe trying new things, failing better, and growing my practice.

In 2022 I moved back to the Colorado Front Range, and now live on 2.5 acres of land in the Foothills north of Longmont. I’ve done some teaching in Colorado since moving back, but as of now am primarily doing freelance and contract work as a designer and multimedia artist and while I continue to explore making music. I spend a lot of time with my son and partner, with my garden, with my crazy dog, and with my instruments in an old barn.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
In a lot of cases the bumps on my road weren’t necessarily specific to just me, but that I was, culturally/geographically, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Living in a pretty physically isolated place, like Fort Collins, meant that it was hard to get out of the cultural bubble there. It was a vibrant arts and music culture there in the late 00s, but it wasn’t really what I was into in most cases. I was obsessed with outsider experimental electronic music like Black Dice and most of the arts culture in Fort Collins was into alt-country whiskey rock sort of stuff like Drag the River. Drag the River is great, but I was looking for more adventurous cultural experiences. This was happening around the same time I was falling into the depths of early DIY online culture and blogs.

Those 2000s DIY movements took place in large part online, and those communities were largely rooted in vivo in major cities like LA, Brooklyn, Chicago, Austin, Portland… The music and art happening in those spaces was scattering across the internet and anyone anywhere had a chance to view it, to listen, to be a part of it, even from far away. Having access to this new and exciting culture, mostly via my computer, was kind of a double-edged sword. It was thrilling to be part of this strange new cool online music community experience; it was also kind of frustrating feeling like it wasn’t quite happening at the same level in my hometown.

Colorado is a beautiful place, but I think part of the beauty is that we are pretty isolated from the major cultural hubs through massive physical and geographic distance. Smaller touring bands are reluctant to come through because we are so far from everything, it’s challenging to start a tour here because it is at least a 2 day drive to any major city for a show… this isolation is also a blessing and a curse. We have incredible landscapes here! It is beautiful! It is also far from things…

Moving out of Colorado for a bit and seeing more of the world, going to graduate school and really diving into learning about the history of art and culture, working at an art museum, becoming a professor and really leaning into academia, having some experiences way outside my comfort zone, these were bumps too. Huge ones. That road was not smooth. But, leaving Fort Collins for almost a decade and becoming a small part of the arts community in Chicago helped me feel more confident being the artist and the person that I am. It changed how I see the world and my creative practice. That made returning home to Colorado feel like, another bump sure, but just another one in a long history of bumps.

I tend to believe that art is born from experience, and that there are bound to be bumps on every road eventually. Those bumps make experiences, and experiences make art. I think artists need struggles, need bumps.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I was a college professor for 10 years alongside my arts practice; having one foot in academia and bureaucracy was very formative to my journey as an artist. I think that has been really helpful in figuring out or giving me language to talk about what I do.

The main thrust of my art practice is built around making music; I make music that spans genres, but is often couched in being “ambient music.” I curdle at this tag a bit, but suppose it fits. I often use field recordings, electronics, classical instruments, computer glitches, jazz, folk music, and whatever else I find interesting to create a kind of hybrid studio music.

Being involved in DIY culture and publishing has also meant that I have been able to explore graphic design, and I’ve become a designer over the years in my own way too. I’ve designed hundreds of releases on cassette, CD, vinyl, and online.

Alongside my music and design, I also have a fine arts practice. That work I categorize as being “intermedia” art. I often work across mediums; sculpture, drawing, sound art, new media, installation, digital art.

I’m not sure what sets me apart except that maybe I have just kind of leaned into this intermedia tendency with abandon; I don’t really like categorizing my work too neatly, I like to invite uncertainty into what I make, I don’t know what I am doing most of the time. I try to be open to the surprises that experimentation and failure afford.

I’ve been really fortunate to have my work end up in some wild places; I am really proud of the sound/sculpture components I contributed in collaboration with the artist Pope.L to his installation “Choir” at the Whitney museum in 2019.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Well, I live outside of a city area, but I think my answer is similar to most Coloradoans in that what I like most about Colorado is my increased contact with landscape, wildlife, habitats, gardening, flora and fauna. The landscape of the Front Range is unique and beautiful and compelling.

Having said that, and this echoes some of my previous answers, the cultural/geographic isolation that comes with living in Colorado can be frustrating. Not to say there is nothing exciting here, but given “the internet of things” it can feel so close and yet so far from so much.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.matthewjsage.com
• Instagram: @matthewjsage