Full Circle.
by M. Ramieri
So, I finally sat down and started to write this thing. Forgive me for the delay. I'd ask you to consider that the least exciting prospect in the life of a Paleoartist is to sit down and write about himself. As debilitatingly egregious as that usually sounds, it is a ruthless kind of pain when you would already "Rather be sculpting dinosaurs."
Want to skip to the facts? Click here.
Since my earliest memories, I have enjoyed dinosaurs. I remember filling copious quantities of sketchpads with illustrations of T. rex doing all sorts of sordid things. My mother was attentive to my artistic impulses and constantly brought home clean, new, unadulterated, bound white pages for me to devour. So, T. rex got a lot of action in the Ramieri household. Typically, he'd be ripping something (usually someone) apart. I went through many red Crayola markers to accurately describe the inevitable torrent of blood that marked every "Matt-Made" T. rex encounter. I would delight in a new, never-before-used red marker because the red was just so darn red ( as opposed to the faded pink that a worn marker would be reduced to). Occasionally other dinosaurs made appearances in my dinosaur Tombs of Terror. Still, if I am to tell it like it is, I have to concede that they existed purely as playthings of my Ravenous Rexies.
I did not just draw rexes; my mother also provided me with re-useable oil-based Plasteline that inevitably made its way into T. rex shapes of all sizes. The clay would come in various colors, so I would first use the different colors to denote other parts. For instance, maybe I would use white for the teeth and red for the eyes. However, not long into the tenure of any box of Plastiline, homogenization of color would occur (often smashed together and mixed all up out of frustration-unable to manifest the images from my mind's eye). In short order, I would deal with lumps of grey-brown-greenish globs instead of easily distinguished separate colors. Honestly, that suited me just fine. At that time, everyone knew that T. rex was brown, grey, green, or some combination of those colors.
I was so enthralled with the Tyrant King that I drew him (it was ALWAYS a him) all over everything. I drew him on the beautifully brown-paper-covered school books my mother covered for me and on the desks and in bathroom stalls. It is a wonder (now that I am thinking about it) that I never got pulled aside and slapped on the wrist for drawing all over everything. I really cannot remember ever having been scolded for it. Not to belabor the point, but one memory stands out in particular about my T. rex obsession...
​
Not my drawing... just illustrating the point.
This memory came at one point in my childhood, maybe in third grade; I just can't be sure of the actual year or my age. However, I am sure that I was pretty young. It was sometime in elementary school because I clearly remember Mrs. Gozonski (spelling?).
​
Mrs. Gozonski was my art teacher in elementary school. Not to be a braggart, but I can tell you that I was the proverbial "Shit" when it came to art in elementary school. I mean, nobody compared to me regarding artistic talent back then. All my classmates knew it, as did I- they were always asking me to draw this and that for them, so I knew that I was the "most artistic" of all my classmates. However, Mrs. Gonzonski would always downplay my talent and respond to my work with a tepid, unenthusiastic side-mouthed smirk. She would consistently mark my report card with an "S" instead of an "O," which ticked me off. "S" stood for "Satisfactory," while "O" stood for "Outstanding ."If you are the best in the class, doesn't that inherently make you "Outstanding"? She did this (I even knew it at that young age) because I was always painting and drawing blood and violence. This offended her sensibilities. So, the kids who drew daisies and painted butterflies won the "O"'s, while I and my Ravenous Rexies got the shaft.
Anyway, this one particular memory took place in Gozonski's art class. She made the most fantastic announcement that a dinosaur-loving kid could ever want to hear on this day. She told us that because of a brand new dinosaur discovery, Gozonski would enter us into a competition to have our artwork displayed publicly- in a very public place for all to see! Now, I wasn't so excited about the public display; I was excited that Gozonski would let us paint dinosaurs for DAYS in her class... during the school day! I was going to be ALLOWED to draw dinosaurs in school. This was an epic moment of monumental proportions. I immediately imagined my T.rex drawing/painting on the giant rolls of paper that Gozonski hoarded in the art room. I dove into the most creative recesses of my burgeoning brain to develop the most robust, raucous, raging T. rex of them all!
Now, I had always had a way of escaping into my imagination's wild and wonderful world at the slightest prompting on any given day back then. Looking back, I am sure that I would (in today's terms) be diagnosed with ADHD. I was always daydreaming, so I often got a slap on the wrist. So, it is not surprising that on this day, with this news, Gozonski put my brain asunder.
Gozonski went on to explain that our work was going to be displayed at the Newark Airport with a big sign that said that Gozonski's class of blah, blah, blah, from Center Grove Elementary School. She also explained that the discovery was of the thigh bone of a dinosaur that they were calling "Ultrasaurus ."She went on babbling about and carrying on while all I wanted to do was start on my most amazing T. rex illustration ever! Finally, the white noise of Gozonski's jabbering stopped, and she started cutting off big slices of pristine white paper. I would turn the modern world inside out with those glorious white empty sheets. The Earth would never be the same once my ultimate "Ultra-Tyrannosaurus Master Beast" had been created!
I don't remember a whole lot about actually making the illustration. I feel like I can remember it being big and brown, but that's about it. When it came time to turn it in, Gozonski gave me that typically half-smirk of hers. That ticked me off extra that day because I didn't even use a tiny bit of red for blood this time. I knew that she wouldn't like it, and more importantly, for blood to be present T. rex would have had to share space on the page with the creature it was eating. I wasn't down for this T. rex sharing any space. Anyway, she collected my artwork and everyone else's. Then she hung them up for a critique as she would always do.
Well, that's when my bubble began, let's say, deflating. A pattern emerged as Gozonski started putting all of the drawings/paintings on the wall. All of the other kids had illustrated enormous sauropod dinosaurs. Hmmm. I wondered what the heck was going on. I know other kids in the class would have wanted to make T. rexes, so what's the deal? She kept hanging them, and they kept being big Brontosaurus or Brachiosaurus ( the only sauropods kids knew about those days), and then, BAM! My T.rex goes up amidst a hail of muffled chuckles from the peanut gallery. Mrs. Gozonski muttered something as she begrudgingly hung my image up. I don't know what she said, but I would imagine it likely had something to do with paying attention to the directions.
At any rate, I was pretty embarrassed by the whole thing, but I carried on like I was "Devil-May-care." Such a rebel was I that I snubbed my nose at convention, lit the playbook on fire, and never asked for forgiveness. That's what I wanted the ladies to think, anyway. The truth was that I was so embarrassed that I pretended to completely forget to tell my parents about the showing at the airport. The one that everyone else's family went to. You can bet that I was the topic of conversation at many dinner tables that night.
It turns out that not too long after the showing, my family took a trip somewhere. I have no idea where we went, but I remember vividly turning the corner and seeing dinosaur illustrations made by kids lining the wall. As I investigated further, I noticed that they were all sauropods. Then I saw the sign: "Mrs. Gozonski's X grade class at Center grove Elementary ."I shuddered and skipped a step. With mighty trepidation, I scanned the collection of sauropods in search of the lone meat eater. Lo-and-behold, there was none to be found! I could not believe it. In a flash, I was relieved and pissed off, all in one emotional sack of self-loathing. I guess that Mrs. Gozonski thought it best to save my face or hers. Either way, she left my lonely theropod illustration out of the bunch.
Believe it or not, or believe it, seeing as you just read it here- that memory stuck with me. It fits into all varieties of nostalgia, both negative and positive. Obviously, the negatives- my hubris at the time, my inability to pay attention, my obliviousness, obsessiveness, etc. They say nostalgia tends to be a positive experience regardless of the negative triggers that may underpin it. I'd say that this is an excellent example of that. When I think about dinosaurs today, I think about that moment, but I am filled with a warm sense of home. I think about adventure, excitement, and the beautiful mysteries of the lives of these majestic creatures. These days, thoughts of dinosaurs compel me back to my studio and back at the helm of my "Command Center," where all of the prehistoric creatures of my mind's eye take form.
Between elementary school and today, as with any of life's stories, there were a lot of ups and downs. Keeping it to my artistic evolution, even that was a tumultuous ride. I went from being the "Boss" artistically in elementary school to being the undisputed middle school champion. I moved from one town to another for seventh grade, and I walked into that place taller, thinner, and the meanest artist any of my cohorts had seen. I was very into role-playing games at the time, so I drew all of my characters and my friend's characters for the games. Once the other kids started seeing my artwork, they went kind of nuts over it. It was a whole-nother round of "draw me this, and draw me that." The difference here was that the ladies were actually ladies ( to a pubescent seventh grader), and they dug the talent. Wink, wink. I drew all manner of funny characters on girls' hands while I was supposed to listen to the teacher or watching a movie in class. My artistic prowess was so far beyond that of my contemporaries that my art teacher, Mr. Fluker took copies of a whole bunch of my characters and filled a wall in the hallway with them. This included a big cut-out construction paper and a bold filigree title: "Matt Ramieri, Artist."
From two years of "Flying on Wings of Human Dignity" (as my father, the Great Dr. Ramieri, would say) in middle school, high school was a bit of a change. I was still top of the class by most people's standards, but the pond had grown much more extensive (as several middle schools fed the high school), and two tremendously talented artists were teaching more than one type of artistic discipline.
In the early years of high school, Freshman and Sophomore, I still owned the place. I remember clearly as my teacher, Mr. Douglas ( an incredible artist I admired quite a bit), holding a drawing I had done in his hands. He shook his head and said something to the effect of: "Man, I wish I were able to draw like that when I was your age." I could tell he meant it, too.
High School was when I understood that my talents were mostly attuned to the three dimensions. I truly sucked at painting in both acrylics and oil. However, I was building very good representational terracotta sculpture ( very good for my age). This was not pottery. I was working on anatomy in sketch on paper, and in physical form in clay. Mr. Douglas even had a small furnace set up, and I had a chance to make tiny bronze and lead statues. That is where I became infected by the bronze bug.
As things go, I was a growing teenager with all of the distractions of a young person. My interest in art gave way to girls, the Grateful Dead, and marijuana. In short order, by the time I was a senior, my artistic progress had become a ghost in the halls. My art teachers, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Marrero were notably disappointed in the direction I took in those last couple of years. They didn't have too much to say, but I know this in what they did not say and how they said what they did say. That disappointment haunts me today. As I am sculpting at my Command Center, I often wonder if they would approve of what I have become... or if they would say that I could have been much better.
My work didn't fall off entirely, so I could get into Art School before whoring and smoking away my last few days of high school. I decided to go to the University of Hartford Art School. The school was mediocre academically, but the art school was rated in the upper echelons and had an excellent post-college placement rate for artists. The Connecticut campus was beautiful, and I fell in love with it on my first visit.
After the debauchery that was my senior year of high school and a very un-sober welcome to my first year away from home, I decided I wanted to focus on improving artistically. I had blown the majority of freshman year getting high and chasing women, so by the time the smoke cleared, I felt I had some catching up to do. By sophomore year I had developed a great relationship with my drawing and printmaking instructor, Jim Lee. I became his teacher assistant for a few classes and became very interested in printmaking. I continued taking figure modeling classes for sculpture and an introductory bronze casting class, but the formal sculpture curriculum wasn't great. I decided to major in printmaking because I loved all of the processes, it forced me to grow as a sketch artist and renderer, and I had the opportunity to teach along the way.
By this time deep into my sophomore year, I was very serious about my work. I was working around the clock in the print studio, my studio, or teaching with Jim. I also spent as much time doing figure study work as I could between drawing class and the sculptural figure modeling classes. Eventually, I heard about a bronze casting class offered via a studies abroad program in Cortona, Italy. It turned out that the course was offered through the University of Georgia, and Georgia functioned by trimester as opposed to the typical two-semester year. That meant that Georgia's summer trimester ( the time the program spent in Italy) would fit neatly into my summer vacation at Hartford. So, I could finish my sophomore year, transfer from Hartford to the University of Georgia, do the summer abroad program in Italy for their summer trimester, then move back to the University of Hartford and start my junior year without interruption. Well, that is what I did.
Italy was full of fun and adventure, but that's not what this is about, so I will move on. After Italy and, subsequently, college ( I wound up graduating Magna Cum Laude, by the way), I went on to apprentice at the Johnson Atelier in Mercerville, NJ. If you have not heard of it, the Johnson Atelier was the premier place to learn how to cast metal for art in the United States. If you ask anyone in the field, they will tell you. I learned a ton about everything metal casting as I worked on some monumental metal sculptures, some over fifteen feet tall. Incidentally, the Atelier had been commissioned to build the original armature for Sue (FMNH PR 2081), which was happening while I was there. Regretfully, I was a lowly apprentice, so I was not permitted to work on such an important project at the time.
After the Atelier, I worked at another art foundry in Florida and rose the ranks to become Co-Director of the facility. A few projects built under my supervision included: The bronze moment of Mary McCleod Bithune (12 feet tall stands in front of Bithune Cookman College), the 9-foot-tall monument for Errol Barrow, the Apollo Monument, and a whole lot of others.
Me supervising the construction of "Atlas." That's me in black.
Eventually, I left that company to start my own custom bronze and pewter awards and trophy company, Inspired Bronze, Inc. I owned and operated that company for ten years, and we created awards and trophies for some of the world's most famous people. We created awards for exclusive golf clubs, sports teams, and corporations. Some of our clients included: Steinway, Suntory Beam Global (Jim Beam), United Healthcare Children's Foundation, NASCAR Grand Am, Imsa, United States Women's National Soccer Team, VEVO, Dave Ramsey, Trump, Samuel Adams, Chick Fila, and many more.
When I started Inspired Bronze, I made the award masters out of clay. The clay sculpture would then be molded, cast in wax, then the wax brought through the lost wax process to become a bronze casting. Well, at one point, the Steinway job came across my desk. They wanted a 19" long replica Model D piano with a teacher next to a student sitting at the helm. The problem was that I did not have the means (skills) to create a replica of the piano or to sculpt tiny little 1/8" tall faces on the figures at that scale. Luckily, I had already been messing around with Sculptris ( a free 3d program offered by the makers of Zbrush), so I knew I could digitally sculpt the faces and have them printed. The other problem was the piano. So, I contacted Neometrix out of Orlando. They found a cad file of a model D that they could update and print, and they were also able to print my tiny teacher and student's faces.
​
The rest was history. I partnered with Neometrix to produce all of my 3d masters going forward until the last two years or so, then added Dimension Works into the mix. After the success of that project, I ditched clay for good and focused on learning Zbrush. To produce whatever came across my desk, I had to pour myself into studying ZBrush around the clock. I took a bunch of formal online classes, and I watched myriad Youtube videos. I purchased many courses from Ryan Kingslein's company (which changes names more than I change my underwear); at the time, it was called Uartsy (this was around 2015).
Now, I was pretty much way out of the dinosaur thing by this time in my life. I mean, I have always loved dinosaurs and always enjoyed coming across an article about a discovery and whatnot. Still, I wasn't sculpting them, collecting models, or reading about them on the regular. I only sculpted for work, and most of the time, the subject matter did not interest me. It was work. Anyway, Uartsy is where I came across a course by the legendary David Krentz. The course was recorded after the fact (I missed the live version) but touted "Learn how to make a T. rex in Zbrush," so I was intrigued. I hadn't learned much about making different types of textures like scales. I had figured some things out, but I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to learn new tricks. Also, I thought it was cool that I would get to make a sculpture of T.rex in class, which I enjoyed. I thought it would be fun to return to my youth a bit.
I started on the course, and David quickly ditched the T.rex and continued using an Acrocanthosaurus model as an example. I was a little annoyed by this but figured, "Oh well, I will make a rex anyway." After all, I did not need David to teach me how to sculpt, just how to make scales in Zbrush, lol. So, when I first started the course, I thought I would make a nasty Jurassic Park-type rex with all kinds of exaggerated features. However, as I watched and listened to David, I became intrigued by this idea of "paleoart." I had never even heard of that kind of thing before. The pursuit of creating a reconstruction of this prehistoric beast that was as accurate and realistic as possible got my blood pumping.
​
Well, I became obsessed. I spent every spare minute working on my T. rex. After work and on weekends, I would pound the Wacom tablet and research rexes like nobody's business. I read every book I could find, watched Dinotasia about nine hundred times, and watched every Discovery "Dino Battle" and every documentary I could find. I died and was reborn a Paleoartist, and David was the Pastor who baptized me. He just didn't know it. After that, I took a great creature comparative anatomy class taught by Scott Hartman. Again, this was a recorded class after the fact, so, unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to interact with Scott.
So, folks... that's how it all went down. After the Krentz class, I got fully back into dinosaurs in every way. I still had my business until 2018, so it was a hobby, not a professional pursuit. However, judging by the amount of dino-merch my friends and family have flooded me with since then, I have been pretty into dinos since 2015. In 2018 I sold my company to Society Awards ( Makers of all kinds of famous awards, including the Emmies, MTV Music Awards, BET, etc.). Finally, I enjoy every opportunity I get to sculpt because now I get to sculpt dinosaurs. There is no comparison between being forced to be creative (working on projects that don't interest you) and being able to submerge yourself into a subject matter that inspires you entirely and that keeps your creative fire ablaze.
University of Hartford Art School:
1995-1999
Italy Studies Abroad:
1997
Johnson Atelier:
2000-2003
American Bronze Foundry:
2004-2009
Inspired Bronze, Inc:
2009-20018
Deep Mind Development (deepmind3d.com)
2022+
​
Ancient Era Artistry
2022+