The Rebirth

The Story

The Rebirth did not begin as Matt's life story. It began with a truck rim.

On June 23, 2025, in his garage in Arizona, Matt started building something that may have become a water feature. There was no finished drawing. No symbolic plan. No idea that more than a year later he would look at the Piece and recognize himself in it.

At that point, Matt was still early in becoming an artist. He knew he wanted to make art. He was starting to believe that maybe this could become the life he built for himself.

So he started building.

The truck rim became the base. Matt heated quarter-inch steel and beat it down into the rim until it took the shape he needed. A pole went through the middle. Then he started welding industrial punch-outs around it.

They became stairs.

Matt stepped back and saw something he had not planned.

"oh my gosh, that's like the stairway to heaven, that's cool as shit, you know?"

That is how The Rebirth grew.

One thing suggested the next. The stairs became part of a small landscape. A door appeared because the structure looked like it should lead somewhere. A pathway followed.

Then Matt decided the Piece needed a face.

That is where everything stopped.

He could see the face in his head.

He could not build it.

Not yet.

Matt tried to shape the metal into what he was seeing, but his hands had not caught up to his imagination. Eventually, he stopped forcing it.

The unfinished Piece went onto a stand.

And it sat.

Matt did not.

He kept building. He made other Pieces. He learned. His hands changed. His eye changed. His ability to look at steel and understand what he could make from it changed.

Eventually he looked back at the Piece that had stopped him.

This time, he was ready.

"once my skill level evolved and my mind opened a lot more where I can see stuff better and picture it better, I decided it was time to put the face on it."

He went back.

A line of rebar came first, running through the forehead, nose, lips and chin. Once that line was there, Matt could see the rest.

The face that had beaten him before began to appear.

Then the Piece started moving again.

A butterfly. Calla lilies. A phoenix. A lotus. A sunflower. Mushrooms. An octopus. A brain. Roots. Two stairways. A figure celebrating life at the top.

Mechanical parts that had already spent years doing other jobs became part of this new world.

Clutch plates became part of the butterfly's wings. Motorcycle transmission gears and the shaft they once rode on became part of the butterfly. Motorcycle spokes became detail throughout the Piece.

Even part of the original stand Matt built when he first stopped working on the sculpture came back. Instead of being discarded, it became part of the butterfly.

The Piece carried its earlier version inside the later one.

The mushrooms evolved almost by accident. Matt had been heating and bending round material into shapes that looked more like grass. Then he started adding caps.

He stepped back and looked at what had happened.

"oh, that's cool as shit, you know?"

They were mushrooms.

Later, he removed some of the earlier ones and rebuilt them.

He had gotten better.

The old versions no longer represented what he could do.

That is one of the strangest things about The Rebirth. Matt's development as an artist is physically visible inside the same sculpture.

There are parts made by the Matt who was still figuring it out. Parts made before he could build the face. Parts made after he came back. Parts he replaced because his skill had moved beyond them.

The Piece changed because Matt changed.

And somewhere in that process, he started seeing something else.

The stairs. The mushrooms. The phoenix. The lotus. The roots. The brain. The figure at the top.

What had begun without a story was starting to feel very familiar.

"what this piece shows me, which is so wild, is that I was building my story and, like, had no clue about it."

The forms began making sense to Matt in a different way. The phoenix. The lotus. The climb through the Piece.

He talks about them now in terms of hope, courage, rising and rebirth.

The octopus carries its own meaning.

"they're very, very intelligent, which I do look at myself that way these days."

There was a time when Matt did not see himself that way.

There was a time when he was not proud of the person he had become.

There was a time when he knew he was not being the husband, father or man he wanted to be.

Then there is this sculpture.

"it's my life. It's my rebirth. It's how everything changed and got my life in a different direction. And that's my story right there."

The Rebirth was never designed as a neat autobiography.

That is what gives the story its weight.

Matt did not sit down and assign meaning to every part before he built it. He followed the Piece.

Then, somewhere along the way, he recognized himself inside it.

The final sculpture stands 88 inches tall, 35 inches wide and 38 inches deep. It is built primarily from carbon steel, with industrial and mechanical components, some stainless steel and marble.

But the material list is not why Matt looks at this one differently.

He remembers where he was when it began. He remembers what he could not do. He remembers walking away from it. He remembers coming back.

"Every time I look at it, it brings back memories."

The Rebirth is available.

Matt knows it will eventually leave his shop. But he does not want this one disappearing somewhere nobody gets to experience it.

He wants it somewhere people can stand in front of it. Walk around it. Find things. Miss something. Come back later and notice something else.

Because that is how the Piece revealed itself to him.

Slowly.

One thing at a time.

A sculpture that began without a destination and eventually showed Matt where he had been going.

After more than a year of building, stopping, returning, changing, replacing and adding, there was finally nothing left for him to do.

When Matt was asked how he knew The Rebirth was finished, he did not give a grand answer.

He gave the simplest one.

"I ran out of space."

Completed

2026 — Started 23 June 2025 in Matt's garage in Arizona; completed approximately late July 2026.

Dimensions

88" H × 35" W × 38" D

Materials

primarily carbon steel, industrial and mechanical components, some stainless steel and marble

Where

Oceanside, CaliforniaBy appointment — contact Nikki to arrange a time.

The Work

Visit

The gallery sits in a working industrial park — a warm room in the middle of the grinders and the sparks. It's an honest place to meet a piece of art. Come by when it's quiet. Bring somebody. Touch the metal. See if it's saying anything to you. Visits are by appointment. Reach out and Nikki will set a time.