Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have Matt Christine with me. Hi, Matt.
Matt Christine: Hello, hello. Thanks for having me today.
Toni: Well, you’re quite welcome. Let’s see. Take a moment and tell us just a little bit about yourself.
Matt: I am the Marketing Manager and house photographer at the SMG Managed Santander Arena and Santander Performing Arts Center here downtown. Outside of that, I also do some freelance photography. I’ve worked with John Oates. I shot his memoir book cover actually in the Arena, so it was a nice merging of freelance and the Arena project. But yeah, that’s really it.
Toni: Any surprises during those types of shoots that you come across?
Matt: Yeah, sometimes. It’s always interesting when you get someone off the stage where they’re such a persona, and then you’re working with them in front of lights and all that environment. It’s just a completely different vibe than watching them play guitar or sing “Rich Girl” where John Oates is back, “Do this guitar. Get a picture with this.” It’s just a little bit different.
Toni: Oh, that’s kind of cool. It sounds like very interesting work.
Matt: Yeah.
Toni: Let’s go into the Project.
Matt: Of course.
Toni: What does inspiration mean to you, Matt?
Matt: Inspiration to me means in terms of whether it’s art or music, it’s a feeling. When I’m inspired by something, it’s usually because I experience an emotion, whether it’s anger, happy, whatever it might be. That’s usually what it comes down to, whether I’m creating artwork or consuming somebody else’s artwork. It’s that feeling that you search for.
Toni: Do you know when it happens?
Matt: Yeah. I’m a visual person, so inspiration to me is when I’m looking at something and it just clicks. For me, it’s like a cinematic kind of moment where it’s almost like a movie, where I’m living it, but I can also picture it from a third person kind of experience as well.
Toni: Is it a visceral reaction to something you’re seeing visually?
Matt: Yeah. To me, that’s definitely what I think inspiration is, or at least what it means to me.
Toni: You used emotions like sad, angry, happy. So, you can be inspired, but it’s not necessarily always a happy inspiration.
Matt: Yeah. I think we as a society put a lot of focus on happy inspiration. Maybe too much of a focus where it’s sometimes okay to embrace those other feelings, and still be inspired by that. I mean, there’s a lot of musicians specifically that are inspired from some tragedy and some less than stellar things, but it’s still to me an inspiration. You can take that and work it into something. You can see something tragic, and then be inspired to react to it.
Toni: To take action.
Matt: To take action. That’s a great way to look at it.
Toni: So, how do you take those multi levels of emotions that happen visually, and how do you put that into practice here in Berks County.
Matt: That’s a great question. Within Berks County, I think…hmm.
Toni: Is it something that you do with your work? Is it a personal thing? Can you remember maybe getting into the arts and being creative with photography? I know you’re into marketing and so forth, so when you’re inspired by any tipping point of an emotion, can you give an example of how you’ve taken that and put it into a call to action?
Matt: When I’m inspired and I’m trying to make it into a call to action, I’m trying to make somebody else feel the way that I felt that first time. Obviously, when I’m inspired by something and I go back to it again, that initial reaction is gone. Trying to recapture that moment of “the first time” – compare it to the first time you ate ice cream. It’s never as good. Sure, it’s still great. It’s ice cream the 50th time, but there’s something about trying to recapture that and show it to somebody, whether it’s through marketing or through art or anything like that, is just trying to make people see what you’re seeing and have a conversation about it. I don’t think it’s a healthy environment if you’re trying to force somebody to feel inspired, but whether they’re inspired or not, just have that conversation.
Toni: Do you do that? Do you find yourself…have you done that in your photography?
Matt: I think I have. I like to think I have. It’s kind of a tough question to answer for my own work. I definitely, whether it be marketing or photography or whatever it is, whatever is going on, I definitely try to capture that same aspect of inspiration that I draw from, whether it’s like we said, some of the less than stellar ones or happy ones.
Toni: It really has to be almost at the root of any type of art, I would think, that you have to be inspired from something, and then to either write that song, play that music, take that picture. Something has to be at the root of that.
Matt: Yeah. An epicenter, of sorts.
Toni: That you’re recreating in order to make a feeling. It might be kind of cool as well that you might have been inspired by something that was sad, but what you put out there could inspire someone in a very happy way.
Matt: Yeah.
Toni: That’s kind of cool. That’s a pay it forward emotion. So, who in Berks County inspires you?
Matt: This is one I actually thought about a little bit. Who in Berks County inspires me is definitely the patrons who are coming downtown, whether it be for events at the Arena and performing arts center, or if they’re coming downtown to the businesses. Going to the DoubleTree and eating at any of the restaurants. I am inspired by those people who are…I don’t want to say “buying in” to the downtown experience, but who are committed to what Penn Street has to offer.
I’m not from this area, as we talked about before the interview. I grew up in the Lehigh Valley. There is definitely a mental stigma to me about Reading, and coming here and experiencing it and seeing all the great things and all the great people who are just here in this downtown hub who proved what I thought wrong, that definitely inspires me. To now be a part of that movement of trying to get people to come down here to experience something, whether it’s dinner, concert, anything — just to be part of this actual city of Reading is definitely inspiring.
Toni: Do you talk about that myth that you had, that perception being busted?
Matt: All the time.
Toni: Do you?
Matt: It’s part of who I’ve become within Berks County. Yeah, I definitely think I’ll say north of Kutztown is where that myth originates from, because I don’t think people feel that here, at least in my three years here. I’ve never been approached by somebody who embodied that, nor have I seen anything that contributed to that feeling. Yeah.
Toni: It’s a movement of people who inspire you here in Berks County.
Matt: Yeah. That’s a possible answer, yeah, but I think that’s definitely where I’m at with that, because there’s just so many people across so many spectrums of things downtown here. This is one of them. Just a lot to be inspired by.
Toni: It is. Every day. Every single day. So Matt, I know you’re probably a young guy, and maybe you haven’t thought about this question, but what would you like your legacy to be?
Matt: Is it weird to say I’ve thought about this more than I probably should?
Toni: No.
Matt: My legacy, I just would like to know that I made people experience something, whether they came downtown to a concert or consumed some of my photography visually or had a conversation with them and they took something positive from that. Or, even if they took something negative from that, and then they made a life change from it. Just impacting other people. I feel like that’s kind of a blanket statement for any artist or any content creator, is just to leave a lasting imprint. When I’m gone, I want somebody to go, “Oh, do you remember that person? I saw this. Because of them I went to this. Because of what they said, I did this.” That’s definitely what I think I would want my legacy to be.
Toni: How cool is that to continue? You are living your legacy. You are creating content, and so you’re leaving those footprints along the way.
Matt: It’s kind of like a paradox, like the snake eating its own tail type of thing. You’re creating content, but also leaving a legacy all at once.
Toni: It’s an amazing thing, isn't it?
Matt: Yeah, it is. It is.
Toni: Well, thank you so much for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project.
Matt: Of course. Thanks for having me.
Toni: Thank you.
