Collection: M. GETZ

Matthew Getz grew up in Southern California in the mid 60's & 70's. He is 3rd generation Californian. As a fairly normal & happy person, Matt hung out, played tennis on the high school tennis team, surfed, studied, worked, listened to the music of & attended great mid 70’s Rock concerts. As a 10 year old kid, Matt was lucky enough to do 2 TV commercials (Kraft Foods & Shasta Cola). This money helped him buy his first car, a used 260-Z. Realizing the ascetic of things, he had the car painted gloss Black! Matt got turned on to Surfing around 16, and surfed a lot north of Malibu, and North County San Diego. Graduating High School at the early age of 17, Matt was able to leave L.A. to attend U.C. San Diego. This University, along with being able to live and surf in La Jolla and Northern San Diego, allowed Matt to leave the rat race world of high school life far behind. This was important, as this new world allowed him the freedom to enjoy the beautiful environment and surf of San Diego, while opening up his mind to the new things his friends, music, art, girls and studies had to offer. After a few years at UCSD, including a year off spent traveling around California, and 2 quarters at UCSB, Matt transferred to UC Santa Cruz, where he eventually graduated in 1987. He loved living in Santa Cruz mainly for the beauty of the Redwood Forests and Ocean. The people in Northern California at that time, 1983 were the coolest. Right over the mountains was San Francisco and all it had to offer. The beauty, history and golden light of this area is what truly made Matt an artist! Based in Santa Cruz, he traveled a lot to San Francisco, and Berkeley to see Bay Area concerts and to study and visit friends at UC Berkeley. Matt studied what interested him, beyond his major, which was mainly neuroscience! He also studied the mathematical forms of evolution, and the physics & chemistry of light. What he studied was really detailed and exciting. Matt states, "I really enjoyed Neuroscience & Physics, especially Light and the mathematical correlation to the forms of nature. A lot of his artistic ideas are based on physics. The problem was that spending a lot of time on his own ideas, and art, there was not enough space left to compete with the lot of pre-med, straight A students who wanted to get a second PhD in Neuroscience beyong their MD, literally blocking most of his chances to get into a highly competitive graduate neuroscience program. Besides huge funding cuts were happening in the mid 80's, giving the vision as a scientist unfufulling. The rise of Computers and Computer Graphics was also becoming paramount - especially in Northern California!