Ask the Artist Series No. 01: Erika Matyok
Ask the Artist is a Q&A blog series where Sarah Jackson interviews artists about the work they do, their creative process, and the joys and struggles they face as an artist and a person. Each blog post focuses on a single artist in the Phoenixville art community.
Erika Matyok surrounds herself with art in all aspects of her life. Whether she’s working as an art teacher, painting murals in and around the Philadelphia area, or leading workshops at local art centers, Erika incorporates her love for art into every moment. Day to day she helps her elementary school students develop their artistic skills in the classroom. In her personal work, Erika draws from nature and her Hungarian heritage, which inspired her latest series of paintings featuring strong folk art symbolism and bold colors and patterns.
Dive in to the Q&A below to learn what inspired her to incorporate traditional folk art into her pieces and how she balances life as a full-time teacher and artist.
Sarah: How do you balance being an art teacher and creating your own personal work?
Erika: I think one inspires the other. I don't have kids, so I have more time to myself after teaching to do dedicated work, but I think teaching kids keeps my art really positive and fresh. They’re very honest, so I will share my artwork with them and get their thoughts. I'll bring it in in-process and have it in the classroom or share with them my own perspective on things, so that influences how I approach my artwork. For me, it’s an art-related job that has stability and benefits. I get to teach art every day, so I’m immersed in the creative side of it, and I think it does support the creative element outside of teaching, too.
S: Where do you draw inspiration for your art?
E: I think I draw inspiration from experiences and tradition, like what’s around me and what I grew up with. Especially lately, I’ve been really pulling from traditional Hungarian folk art, which is part of a whole new series of paintings that I developed. It’s a combination of work that I’ve done in the past and things that I’m currently interested in. It's kind of an evolution of a few things, because I started out doing flowers and then evolved into doing other nature-based paintings!
S: What drew you to folk art specifically?
E: It's been an evolution. So, my last name is Hungarian, and there’s a traditional embroidery style called Matyó embroidery that is one letter different than my last name. I’d seen the style around my house and tried it on my clothes, but I didn’t know the similarity to my last name or what it was. So when I discovered that, I started researching it more, and I was really drawn to it and found the connection incredibly fascinating. So, I started to let that inspire some of the new work that I was doing, and it also flowed into other work that I had done before.
S: What do you hope people take away from your art?
E: A big thing for me is definitely connection. One of the things that's important about this body of work that I've been developing is that I've been using a lot of traditional folk art. I hear different people see my work and say, “Oh, this reminds me of…” and then they have a story about their family, or it connects to a place they grew up because of common symbolism or certain traditions or patterns that are being used in the piece, and that’s something that connects us.
S: How do you protect your energy as an artist?
E: I’m still trying to figure that out! I do socialize, but I keep my social circle very small and very personal. I try not to overwhelm myself socially and mentally. I’m very protective of that. I do a lot of meaningful social activities to try to balance art and teaching and working. I’m not the type of artist where I paint for hours at a time, and I'm very social, but I mostly keep with the same social circles.
S: What’s one thing you hope to accomplish in 2024?
E: I want to paint a bigger mural by myself! I just did one over the summer in Atlantic City, and that was really great. I did it as a community-guided project, so I wanted to incorporate my own design and the community concept as well, so that was a challenge. But now, I want to be able to do more murals where it's my style but still appeasing the community and incorporating what they’re looking to see.
S: What do you like most about the Phoenixville art community?
E: Phoenixville has such a big artist community, and it’s really rare to find so many artists in such a concentrated space. I came down for the opening of the abstract show, and it was really neat to see so many different people and such different work. There's an excitement about it. Philly can be hard to be a part of with certain cliques, so there’s not always a lot of opportunities for growth there. But the energy is really good here in Phoenixville, and people are really supportive of each other, which is really cool.
Erika will be participating in the upcoming juried group show at the MAC gallery in Media, PA opening in March of 2024, and you can find her work on Instagram @erikamatyok or check out her website zhibit.org/erikamatyok
This interview was conducted by Phoenixville-based writer and editor Sarah Jackson. Visit Sarah’s website to learn more about her work and how to get connected.
