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Matthew was born in Montezuma Creek, Utah, to Hugh and Helen Yellowman. As a young boy, he bounced from town to town.The constant moving led to a variety of experiences and to what he describes as an ecumenical upbringing, a memory which elicited a laugh from Matthew. Because he bounced around so much, whenever he reached a new community, he was baptized into another church. He was part of the Mormon Placement Program and lived with a family from Ogden, Utah, for ten years. Today, he follows the traditional teachings of his parents as well as the Native American Church. He is interested in passing along not only the traditional ways to his two children, Camille and Lamont, but his art experience as well.
His artistic abilities showed themselves at an early age. Matthew finished high school in Ogden, Utah, and had six months vocational training in masonry. He has done oil paintings as well as decorated ceramics. He did not start carving wood until 1996 when he got together with fellow folk artist, Rena Juan. He watched Rena carve for awhile, but was compelled to develop his own style of carving. Today, the two of them work together bouncing ideas off of one another and chuckling as an idea evolves into a carving. Their inspiration is all around them as they continuously search for new ideas.
Woodcarving is a real business for them. They start with pieces of cottonwood they find in washes in and around the Navajo reservation. They look at the wood and see what's "inside". They use a chainsaw to rough cut the wood, then work out the details using dremels, die grounders, and sanders. Carbide bits are used and different grades of sandpaper for finishing the pieces. They typically work on a number of pieces at once, finishing all of the woodwork before cleaning up all of the shavings in order to start painting. Acrylic folk art paints are used to achieve the variety of tones and shading in their pieces.
Right now, they work on their pieces at Rena's brother's hogan. They typically work 12-16 hour days, only taking breaks to sell their work and find more wood. They prefer to work in a quiet area with a little music playing in the background, typically powwow music or music from the Native American Church. Once they start carving, they canŐt wait to finish a piece and see how it turns out.
Matthew was making carvings of Native American people from other parts of the country, but was encouraged by Rena to depict Navajo people. Never sketching his ideas, he starts working the wood to create sometimes very complicated movement such as a bucking bull or a man on a trotting horse. He also likes carving the yei but is careful not to offend in creating this special intermediary of the Navajo people.
Matthew hopes if he continues to work hard and excel at his carving that people will come to recognize his work. For the future of his carving, Matt hopes to carve a truly "monumental" piece, a carving which would depict a traditional scene in Monument Valley.
Self Teacher
met a short man who wore a skin-tight coat that was white on the chest and under
the arms, and brown like the skin of a deer elsewhere. The bird does not fly
off but sits and looks at a person, moving its head in every direction. It is
associated with deer.
Another owl, associated with antelope, was called by the same name, but had
a bluish face and skin like an antelope. YL identified the bird as screechowl.
Owls of one kind or another give information and ceremonial properties:
One came
to the hero of the Night Chant and told him the formula for incense, which the
gods fear.
One covered Rainboy with his (skin as a) blanket; another, on a different night,
brought him a cottontail ready to eat, and covered him with his blanket.
An owl traded his medicine, aromatic sumac, with Monster Slayer for four kinds
of tobacco. Owl also gave a wing feather for a prayerstick tamper.
Owl was a sorcerer who spirited a child away and taught it his lore. He is depicted
as another manifestation of Deer Owner (Matthews 1887, p.397; 1897, pp. 123,
193, 244n; 1902, pp. 169, 205; Haile 1938b, p. 125; Reichard, Shooting Chant
ms.; 1944d, p. 135; Newcomb 1940b, p. 69).
Owl: The Owl is a sacred, yet contradictory, bird in Native American mythology. In Kwakiutl myth, when this creature calls, it means someone is going to die. As messenger of death, the owl is not evil, but it can be foreboding. In the Pueblos along the Rio Grande in New Mexico, the owl is definitely a bird of dark omen. In the legendary moccasin game of the Navajo, the old stories tell of how Owl tried to hide the pebble under his wing to ensure that it would always be night. He was, however, caught cheating, and that is why night and day are divided equally. Pg. 198
