Who is Dream Monster?

DREAM MONSTER: “My name is Matthew J. Martinez. Some people call me the Dream Monster, also known as Jam. That used to be my other artist name back in the day. I’m a graphic designer, creative consultant and an artist. Moreso an artist now, I’m really kind of leaned into doing that a lot more now.”

Can we go back to your first piece of art? Where did it all begin?
DREAM MONSTER: “So a story that I’ve recently been telling more people to kind of shed light is when I was a kid, probably second or third grade, people would go out during recess to play. I always had a lot of allergies, like seasonal allergies so I wouldn’t go out. I would stay inside and I would draw. People would come in all sweaty and breathing heavy and gross and I’d be there drawing Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse and Looney Tunes stuff. The kids would say, “Hey, can you draw me one?” and I turned that into a business. I started charging my classmates like 50 cents or a dollar to draw something real quick and I’d give it to them or I would tell them, buy me something from the candy vendor.

We had a snack place in elementary school so I would have them buy me Little Debbies, a Swiss roll or things like that. So that’s kind of when it started and really never left me.

Afterward, I started developing my own character. I had this six-legged weird kind of dinosaur. It had the same face as the Dream Monster but it had six legs and it had a weird girthy tail.
It was a weird character but it was really cool. That’s the first real instance of the Dream Monster and when I really started my own kind of art.”

It sounds like you were a hustler since you were a kid. Charging for drawings? That’s pretty smart at a young age.
DREAM MONSTER: “I’ve always put in my head that I’m going to make money off of doing what I love. My parents raised me saying, ‘as long as you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.’”

I feel like people are pretty lucky to figure that out at a young age because a lot of people find that out late or try to chase that later in life.
DREAM MONSTER: “It’s so much harder, I mean, even now, I see I’m very blessed that people know me and know of me and what I do. I think it definitely opens a lot of doors and I know how hard it is for artists so I never try to keep things to myself. I try to share, I try to involve people as much as I can.”

Have you been an artist throughout your whole career? Or did you have a more traditional career and decided to become an artist full time?
DREAM MONSTER: “No, I think I’ve always been an artist. I’ve always been plagued with doing art and being creative. I took six years off of doing my character and prior to that, I owned an art gallery and the character [The Dream Monster] was kind of the mascot of the gallery. I had that gallery for about six years after I moved back from California.”

You had that gallery here in El Paso?
DREAM MONSTER: “Yeah, downtown. I’ve always been one to see something and say, oh, you could do this with that. You can make money off of that, or you can build this. I’ve also done creative consulting for different brands and companies and stuff like that. I even worked for Betsey Johnson. I was a fashion stylist out there. I was able to put outfits together for runway shows and different kinds of events. That was really fun and that was really my only real job I’ve ever had.

I used to run a tattoo shop here. I’ve lived many, many lives. I was the graphic designer and then became the shop manager at a tattoo shop here. I feel like my cycle is always six years because it was around six years as well for that too. We owned our vintage store, Thrift Store Vintage for six years.”

Were you still doing your art while you owned that vintage shop?
DREAM MONSTER: “No, I had completely stopped. So after closing the gallery, there was a bad taste in my mouth. I just feel like I put a lot into it and I didn’t get a lot out of it. But I was still really appreciative of the opportunities I had and I tried to help as many artists as I could. I think I helped a lot of artists but I think it was just time to transition. So we opened the vintage store the last couple months of having the gallery and then closed the gallery and just went full force with the vintage store. The store ended up doing exceedingly well.

We ran that for about six years and then we really focused on our marketing, consulting and then we did that for a while and now I’m just here.”

Did you like the marketing aspects of working with the vintage shop or did you really miss being an artist?
DREAM MONSTER: “I liked the vintage shop a lot, not necessarily because of the vintage but like creating a space, curating the collections, telling stories with the clothes that we were providing. We did a lot of very rare vintage clothes. So putting together collections like that was a lot of fun. Then the actual physical space, I really enjoyed it. I got to decorate it. I would always build stuff, move stuff around, create art pieces like wall decor. So I was still making art, but it just wasn’t what my character, [The Dream Monster] was. I would just do upcycled art and we would display them for aesthetic and I would sell a lot of [artwork]. I just don’t think I was allowing myself to say ‘I’m still an artist’ at that time.”

When would you say your art really started taking off? Was there a moment where you realized, “I just really blew up?”
DREAM MONSTER: “I think when I had the gallery it was big then and when I lived in LA it was really big there. Then, I wouldn’t say not until maybe last year, it really started taking off again. I was traveling a lot last year doing mural fests and just getting a lot of different opportunities to paint. There’s a lot of local businesses that have given me the opportunity to paint murals.
So once I started seeing businesses reach out to me more and more, I was like okay. And it still hasn’t fully hit me, but I do notice more of an influx of people interested.”

Do you have a goal that you want to reach in life that you’re waiting on?
DREAM MONSTER: “What I really want, and the goal is, I want to own my own warehouse. I want to convert that into a full-on studio. I would like one area that’s solely for carpentry, where I can cut stuff and build and one section for painting. Another section for graphics and then I want to have a gallery space where all the things that I make can go on display. I don’t just do art, I also build furniture. So just a space where I could open up maybe quarterly and work on stuff for three or four months and then open up to the public. That’s kind of the goal. Just to be able to have a working studio where I can do everything creative that I want and live peacefully.”

Do you feel like you’re doing that on a small scale here at Cool Things Studio?
DREAM MONSTER: “Yes, 100%. I think here at Del Norte Courts that’s what this kind of is. Showing people what I’m doing here is very different from what a lot of people do. I’m not open every day. I’m not trying to make tons of money off of this. It’s just a space where people come once a month. Or once every other month and it’s just a vibe. I have one coming up on the 30th of this month (June).

I just want to have real one-on-one interactions with people and for people to like what I do and come talk about it and hopefully they feel like they want to take some pieces home with them.”

You mentioned that you’re always there for other people if they need advice. What type of advice would you say someone could come to you for?
DREAM MONSTER: “I think everything, anything, I try to be helpful if I can, I was raised to be helpful. I hear a lot of people ask me questions like, how do you become an artist? or, how do you get mural gigs? what kind of paints do I use? how do I get a sponsor? So I try to help with that. But even if it comes to life, or just simple things, I try to be there. I don’t know everything but I try to be honest and true to myself. I try to share the same kind of knowledge.”

Have you had any formal training as an artist or are you self-taught?
DREAM MONSTER: “I went to school for art, I majored in graphic design and art at UTEP.”

Would you rather be painting your art outside or would you rather work on furniture?
DREAM MONSTER: “That’s tough because I really want to do more furniture pieces but no, I think painting my art.”

Would you rather paint with a brush or spray paint?
DREAM MONSTER: “Spray paint. I still don’t feel like I’ve fully mastered it and I feel like there’s still so much to learn. I have friends all over and I see some of their work that they do and I just say to myself, I want to get there. So I feel like there’s still a lot of challenges for me and I would say spray paint.”

Is there a dream place that you would love to see your artwork on? Somewhere where you would feel like nothing else matters. “I made it.”
DREAM MONSTER: “I don’t know if I have an actual city, but I want to do a giant vertical mural on a big building. That’s what I want to do. Like one of my characters just smiling down on people who are stuck in traffic and there’s just this big goofy bright character just smiling at you and you can’t do anything but just say like, f-you and laugh about it.”

Do you have any rituals?
DREAM MONSTER: “No, I think I can just get into the zone really quick. I just try to enjoy it. I don’t really listen to music, I try to force myself to listen to music but I like it to be silent. Like in the moment. Purely in the moment. That’s one of the few times I feel really at peace. So I’ll just say that’s probably my ritual.”