The following is from the doers, dreamers, sketchers, crafters and mess-makers that congregated in the first two versions of The Match Factory. This running scroll is a snapshot of the artwork, propaganda, design, poetry, commissions, experiments, collages, brands, gifts, posters, documents, paintings, photos, screenprints, gig posters and so on. By some of our dearest friends and most admired fellow makers, consider this a shout out and a thank you for participating in something we care about deeply and think of far too often.

To all the better things everyone has moved on to, the fond memories we have of each of these projects and to one hell of a 2010. We feel honored to know you and grateful for being inspired by your hands. Until the next time we find ourselves drinking and plotting together, we hope, in the not-too-distant future, onward! – Jason and Justin

FUTURE – by Bil Johnson

1.18.08

boy
the last month
you’ve been put through the wringer
flu
cold
pink eye
ear infection ear infection
and still
that smile. that laugh.

1.21.08

jack was born an anarchist in the true sense of the word (aren’t all children?)
innocent. enlightened. anarchist.
authority figures are ignored with confidence. no rule-of-law no rule of class or race
no arbitrary self-righteous leader-figure holds sway over him.
he wishes no ill-will or harm he simply wants the shackles to dissolve.
he will disarm with a smile as he deconstructs a routine of days once believed to be
etched in stone. grinding ones focus until it is centered only on what is real what is tangible
what is truth. what is truth?
a look into jack’s arresting blue-eyes is a look into our deep past.
food shelter unconditional love. these are all that exist.
as it should be.

The Pledge of Grievance – by Bil Johnson
you.
is what we never were.
silent.
we no longer are.
invisible.
no more.
stepping through the fog.
of fanatical nationalism.
can someone scream.
please.

i am first a husband and father.
son. brother. grandson nephew cousin uncle.
i can no more swear allegiance to a government.
than a government can swear allegiance to me.

Weston - by Craig Turnwall

I stayed up late, drank all the beers,
thought about my old-
man for no particular reason.
Imagine the living room where’d he be
sitting, he’s still awake tonight too,
wondering if anyone’s
wondering if he’s tired, restless of rusting shackles.
That naked
street, outside the small town picture window, the summer air is pensive and lazy,
of memories and unhealed
wounds which don’t escape the deep gravel, or the firehouse.
Where all the engines are cold, alarms
at half mast, all is on fire inside rather than rooftops
or property, he knows his legs don’t work
anymore, there’s nowhere left to run.
Ache, on the canopy, airs twisted and silent
ghosts, glance from a sitting expression
reflection back
against the panes of glass, all the hourglass beats
poured from extinguished wishes, false dreams and patch-work
cigarette burns that no cloth can carry.
This carpet and wood, these walls and patient
stares of my old-man linger, so we both stay up
late, and his
streets are alone and mine are
meant, meant to imagine cured concrete lonesome, but I just can’t
think that hard, that hard
at all – out Weston windows.

Where heart meets blood. - by Craig Turnwall
I think a man’s heart beats fast
when he thinks about the hour before him,
and the new,
a moment when he feels bent, or lapse,
night crept upon him like a bleeding wound, dream
woke with faded light, night on the creep,
mindless drum, anticipation of not finding a way again,
to make morning,
he wants heliocentric ideas, in a moon phased wanderlust,
all that is dark is long,
battered can be a cool breeze, men think with their souls wide open,
sidewalk is tragic, death is tragic, pain is not a fearless endeavor,
all scars remind of past achievements with regeneration, blood pumped
toward goals coursed during walk and sleep,
what wonderful conquests you entertain, adrenaline,
this palpitation and open window.

Youngasabean – by James Dunn
You at right now
Luck and love
Love will explode in these hills
Our beds will be ovens.
Dirt covers you
You are as young as a bean.

A City From Above – by James Dunn
The city is no different from above.
I see struggle.
People with sweet poor faces falling into a mess of numbers.
All they want, I think, is to kiss their kids.
The city from above,
Each brow a light.

By Midnight, Bullfight - by Adam Pomajzl
mornings blush
with light behind
curtains,
making sheets
impossible to unwrap-
I assure you,
it’s just bedposts,
tossed jackets,
poems on hardwood floors.

so this sunrise
salivates answers
from dashboard notes,
quotes lines
from park benches,
quip conversation
conversely arrogant
while
our divided attention
fell to turning phrases

The Up Side Of A Flip Coin – by Adam Pomajzl
keep your knees
buried in trenches
fingers dug in earth
in creases
expressions plastered
on this thin space
between we and window-

it’s back spasms
that’s holding us
up at night.

this day passes
in a withered wash
formulated by
a shelf of books binding back
a choke of tears
a white of knuckles
a furious glare
that snuck up
in the form of a glance
with first thought,
but shuddered

before blooming.

Development at the corner of Monterey and Country Club
(they’re watering dirt that used to have things growing in it) – by Dan Schreiber
they were allowed to tear out the date palms
native vegetation
that would have helped hold the dirt in place without any water
but are now required to run sprinklers all day
half a dozen or so on giant piles of dry earth
so the flow of petroleum-burning, carbon-emitting autos is not interrupted by blowing dust
in the desert
a large placard gives a number to call with complaints
where would a caller really begin?

Untitled 1 – by Dan Schreiber

in hills less black
we dig for teeth
giving them history
introducing timeline

their value now true
as assigned
their loss now of import
as found
we give them our grace
meaning
we give ourselves place
imparting gifts

d.schreiber
09.01.2005

Rememory – by Jacqueline Ostrowicki

I miss you in parts, as a whole,
and both in various combinations:
just the eyes
or sometimes the eyes
and the fingertips.

Blood River – by Mike Semrad

We built up this bridge so long and high
So we don’t get swept down the valley where the forgotten souls lie

Welcome to this well oiled machine
Where the poison of heartache is amongst us
Old mans leg is dangling through the bridge that we have built
To save us from the skies cry

We built up this bridge so long and high
So our children and theirs won’t ask why

Blood River

Tonight we watch out the window at the rain
We watched it rise up and go back down again
Down to the valley to soak in the lines
Where the harvest grows as high as the pines
The bridge we built holds strong through the weather
Cause the blood we shed holds it together

A Place for Our Attention

Our efforts at the Match Factory have always been focused on getting our hands dirty. Because making is part of things was our mantra. We payed attention to the need to try new things while remaining rooted to our sense of place — firmly in the Nebraska soil. What the final expression of whatever project it was we were working on, it was understood to always be experiment, learning, and an extension of us in terms of our aspirations as creative thinkers and active doers.

The Match Factory has carried us through our focus on collaboration and random thoughts, experiments in film, exhibition, entrepreneurship and our individual growth as designers. The trajectory has been one of free-flowing idealism with bursts of creative sparks. We vaguely knew where we were going on the way to where we are today. And now we look to changing things up, with a more focused vision, while still keeping our original intentions in mind.

Allow us to look back, just for a moment.

The Sprinter:

Our short film The Sprinter was about freedom. We wanted grit, raw, loud, impulse, bursting motion. It involved our design sensibilities while bringing together our musical wanderings and affinity for the beauty of layered, textured images. The tempo, the sound, the look all played together to tell the story of a man who was searching for himself along a journey merging the formulaic and the random.

TheMatchFactory.com:

This lead directly to the TheMatchFactory.com (version 02). We had become “professionals” in the field of design. We landed real jobs. Real incomes. And could pay off our real debts. It was a damn good feeling. But being prone to the idealism of misdirected youth, we still had the need to do random, weird shit. We saw The Sprinter as random, weird shit that needed a home. Thus, we made a Web site for it to live and around that project we drew in a group of artists, writers and designers, all at similar stages in young careers, to participate in a playground for making stuff + things. We had things we were doing in our spare time that became designs and concepts we shared on the site. Everything from anti-machomilitarism to love posters for our girlfriends. It was a great beginning that we look back on fondly.

Nebraska T-Shirts:

Then, in a bar in downtown Lincoln, we had a conversation about how no one really knows where Nebraska is. So, why can’t it be everywhere? Why can’t it have mountains, oceans, six-legged cows, wizards and palm trees. And why can’t it be bigger? (Which involved taking over Iowa.) The following three-year, off and on effort involving Nebraska T Shirts was an exercise in learning to screenprint and a type of entrepreneurship not really practiced much. We wanted people to see our shirts, like them, want to buy them, but not buy too many, and not be able to find them too easily. Our plan of kinda-sorta-attack worked for everyone involved as we see it. We sold shirts to many parts of the world thanks to the Internet, gave many, many thesbians visiting Lincoln many, many good laughs and sparked controversy in the only way a t-shirt can; by insulting a place where someone is from who doesn’t have a sense of humor.

Push:

Around this time, we were getting involved with non-profit organizations and doing design work involving the war in Iraq, nuclear weapons and a community of Native Americans who were being decimated at the hands of neglect and exploitation. With several other community- and civic-minded designers, we put on the PUSH exhibition; an occurrence of graphic design that supports and/or opposes social causes. It was tough. It was hard. It was heavy. It was in your face up on those gallery walls. Telling a story on 20, 8 x 10 pieces of glass or making a 12 x 8 foot wall full of pasted B/W posters were just a couple of things we had never done before. They turned out. They turned heads. And we continue to deal with political and socially conscious topics we see as “projects with a common goal for a greater good.”

ID Attire:

We then decided to design more shirts, of a different nature. IDAttire is the identification of self through the specific wearing of a quick flash aesthetic. Or something like that. Some more: IDA is the visual and wearable amalgam of our individual ideas. It is a friendly port on our high seas adventure as we seek to conquer and plunder in the name of inspiration and creative passion. Fear not, we mean you no harm. We mean only to enrich, ignite and be conducive to a shared discourse between us and the world at large. And we come bearing gifts. Yeah, it was fun. We had “inventory” and a tax ID number. We designed 10 shirts in all, our favorite one we think is the one with the AK-47. Not because it’s an instrument of death, but because most instruments of death look good on Mint.

PowerToThePoster.org:

Finally, 2008 came about and we felt we couldn’t just sit there. We wanted to make some noise and jump into the idea of change and get our fellow designers making stuff with a purpose. Power to the Poster (dot) org was created to be a ready supply of wild postings that comment on the issues of our time where anybody, anywhere can download, print and post. A site designed around the 11 x 17, B/W protest poster that has went through many mediums; street postings, exhibition spaces, picked up on all sorts of blogs and landed us in D.C. for Manifest Hope. In short, it got us noticed on a scale we weren’t accustomed to. What we see the site as now is a critique and a celebration of the last year and a half, and a way for us to continue our collaborative efforts with like-minded people.

Now this.

to be continued…