Stories


Painting the California Coast: Volume One

April 18, 2025

840 miles of coast.  175 paintings. 15 years. 6 different vans. 1 book.

ORDER HERE

 

– Foreword by Chris Ahrens
– 200 Pages
– 8 1/2″ x 11″
– 175+ Paintings
– Hardbound
– Second Edition
– Printed on the West Coast, USA

The California Coast is my home.

I first fell in love with California’s coast through surfing and traveling up and down the state’s coast looking for the perfect wave. Artwork came later, and for over 15 years I’ve been working toward painting the entire coastline of this beautiful state. It’s a slow and winding road though… and sometimes it’s no road at all.

I know I’ll never be able to say I’ve painted every piece of this coast, but I can say that I’ve been more intentional about painting the entire coastline than any artist I’ve ever come across.

After years of slowly working toward my long term goal of painting the entire California coast, I’ve realized that it’s going to take a lifetime, and even then I will never be truly “finished”. But hey, even though there will always be more work to do, I have already painted a wide range locations in every coastal county of the state and at last I am going to release a large collection of my favorite pieces in this first volume of my life’s work.

But it’s more than just a book of art. Every plein air painting (painted on location in the outdoors) has a story to tell; fences hopped, encounters with friendly locals, battles with nature itself while attempting to paint out on the edge of a cliff in the wind and against all better judgement. These are the stories of real places. Sometimes simply poems.

To put it simply, this book is, without a doubt, the fullest expression of the artwork I’ve created over the last 15 years.

Enjoy the trip!

-Matt Beard


Mine… Or Maybe Yours

08/27/2021

We met when we were older, when we had more swagger, and we stood a little closer to the throne.

But we had a falling out between us, we’re artists, and we’re awkward, this is widely known.

The fault was all mine, that’s what I’ve been told, but it could have been yours and yours alone.

Years went past, we lost too much, loved ones, and our youth, a wife, and a home.

There’s no point blaming each other now, we’re brothers, and anyway, our conflict was overblown.

So today we stand here side by side and harvest the morning colors from the intertidal zone.

This was the shore that shaped your soul, the same but different to the one that shaped my own.

So at noon oh two and not a minute later we’ll drink down our beers and let our differences sink like a stone.

I could go on about it but the next beer’s getting warm and we’re near the end of this poem.

By night we’re half-drunk on the edge of a cliff, what the hell and how far can our troubles be thrown.

So I’ll leave it at this, you clear-eyed disaster and paint flinging bastard, my respect for you it has grown.

It’s not a secret at all, it’s friendship, it’s clear, like gin in a jar, so drink deep and don’t go it alone.

 

*Dedicated to my buddy Spencer Reynolds, who showed me this spot and brought the beers.


Lost… Or Just Displaced

08/11/2021

The glossy pages of outdoor magazines are the admission tickets. Nylon and Gore-Tex nomads. Lovers of the adventurous life with paid time off. Communing with nature while eating astronaut food under the stars. Always keep it moving. You have to match the speed of gravity to stay in orbit. Don’t stop, or you might get lost… or just displaced.

Back to the land hippies spring up like flowers in shelters built from the ruins of industry scattered across the landscape. Avoid the rat race. Avoid the poisoned food. Avoid shaving. Avoid scary Jack who lost his mind way up the creek one day and has been hunting for it ever since. Avoid going to town if possible. And never go south to the Big City or you will probably get lost… or just displaced.

Pioneering profiteers rumbling the earth with the crash of money trees. Damn the creeks, and damn it all. Mill the timber and milk the earth for all it’s worth. God knows it will waste no time consuming you when your time on her surface is done. So do what you can now for the ones you love. And keep an eye on your little ones. Don’t let them venture too far from their homes. They could easily get lost… or just displaced.

Smoke and fire. Souls released to the heavens as blood returns to earth. Apologies for mentioning a massacre, but nothing can erase the memory of a small child who hid from the light-skinned newcomers and watched her older sisters heart cruelly cut from her chest and her body and heart both left for dead so that when the child finally emerged after the murderers were gone she knew not what else to do so she stood in the blackened grass and held her sisters heart in her hands. And cried. Lost. And now displaced.

Homes of rough hewn redwood full of drying fish and baskets full of baby sisters laughter. A bird that visited each morning, turning it’s head just so. They thought it silly. It thought them beautiful. The grownups had worries that traced back for a thousand years at least. The little ones barely remembered breakfast and wanted life to stay like this forever. So they decided to never grow up because if they did, all would be lost… or just displaced.


Say Nothing

09/25/2021

The land that lay directly behind me as I painted this distant view from one of California’s more central coasts belongs to none other than Neil Young, and having learned this I couldn't help but recall him singing the old Woody Guthrie tune This Land is Your Land:

As I was walkin', I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "no trespassing"
But on the other side, it didn't say nothin'
That side was made for you and me

I’d be lying if I said this didn’t have me tempted to go walking right off this ridge for an afternoon stroll through his private ranch. Just for the poetry of it. But I'm pretty sure it was just a song he was singing from a stage and not exactly his personal property trespassing policy, and if I'd made it very far at all nobody but me alone would have thought it was all that witty to cite that song as my justification.

And besides, I was here with a specific purpose. I was brought up to this lonely ridge to paint the sweeping view and it was far more beautiful looking toward the coast than back over at Neil’s bald hills anyway.

I had learned it was Neil Young's property from the guy who drove me up and dropped me off up here. He's spent a lot of time on this property and knows everyone pretty well.

So of course he knows the caretaker of the cattle on this ranch, the same cattle that we had to slowly navigate through just after the second gate, and he knows that this caretaker is a real... let's just say handful. On our way down one hill, we see the cattleman coming up the dirt road in a cloud of anger and we pull aside to let him pass and he's yelling and spitting as us, red in the face, because a water truck is coming up behind him and I guess he's afraid we'll just plow into it blindly instead of pulling over like we had just done for him and he's also yelling about some loose cattle, and I'm thinking, yeah they're all pretty loose, just hanging around. Who ties up their cattle anyway? I’m no cowboy so I know that any thoughts that run through my head about cattle management are completely bunk, so I keep my mouth shut, but in all seriousness we closed every gate behind us as we went along, which is probably exactly what he thinks we didn’t do. Our Ford 350 was the same plain silver as his but in his mind I think he might have seen ours as covered with sloppy hand painted rainbows and driven by th…

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Sorry Not Sorry

05/03/2021

So this was different. There's a really great beach park 6 miles north of here that I hadn't painted for awhile. I was on my way through the area and thought it would be fun to return and see what I could do with it after a few years of pushing my art process a little further along. I had the idea to hike to a small bluff just north of the park and explore for a different view from over there. I made it about ten feet from my van and then had an idea.

I recalled reading recently that you could hike to the lighthouse 6 miles south of the park at low tides. I didn't say I had a good idea. But I did have peanut butter and jelly sandwich just before setting out from the van so I figured I'd be good to go and off I went on a whim. Just to see how far I would get.  You know.

The tide seemed favorable, so I just kept going, and going, and going. All the way to the end of the beach. Now I didn't read anything too closely, I just thought I saw that I could walk to the lighthouse and when the beach came to an end at a sheer cliff, the only route to go any further was up a trail past one no-trespassing sign after another. I couldn't be sure I was doing this right, but I recognized the name on the sign as belonging the previous owners of the property and so I figured the new owners had some deal with the state worked out for access and just hadn't removed the signs yet. Sounds good, right? I thought so too.

So up the trail I went and over the bluff, marching in broad daylight right up to the turning point of all of California. Just before ascending the knoll was another gate of sorts, with new signs, this time from the Coast Guard saying that only authorized personnel were allowed. I'd come this far to see the light house that I was sure that I read I was allowed to see, so yes, authorized I was. A bit of an odd feeling, tromping past one sign after another with creeping sense that I'd made a wrong turn or missed something somewhere.

But up I went and checked out the whole scene. Didn't see a single person out there. Desolation row. I took some photos of the lighthouse itself but the wind was beyond next level and I wasn't having that, so I settled on this view from a shaded and sheltered spot in front of some old living quarters on the back of the knoll, looking due East! It was a view I had not expected to paint this day, or any other anytime soon.

I had to work exceedingly fast as the day was getting long, the tide was coming up and I had to jam 6 miles back to the car on foot before dark since I was just parked in the day-use spot. I was hoping for a burger at the park store too, but I had a sinking feeling the grill would be long cold by the time I made it back.

Tired and half-broken from the high tide rock scrambles, but proud to have two dry boots after numerous close calls, my tired body smiled as wide as my happy soul as I raised my feet and ate my second peanut butter and jelly sandwich of the day in my van before moving on.

Post-edit:
Later on I read a little more about the hike to the lighthouse. I was supposed to stay on the beach at the lowest tides and see the lighthouse from below. My bad. Sorry, but not sorry. It was an amazing day and my conscience was clean on this one.  Ignorance can be beautiful like that.


Her Name was California

December 11, 2020

He’d laugh this little howling cackle that pulled you into his slipstream as you made your way along the path, down the makeshift rope, repelling into the cove below that you’d never seen breaking before and now was suddenly cracking it’s sonic water booms on the reef below. Everything made him laugh. And almost everything he laughed at led you to math, calculating the odds of survival. ⠀
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Some friendships are like this.⠀
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He led me to a burning mountain. He led me to wildcats prowling in broad daylight. He led me to a cabin where I spent long evenings watching dragons in the heavens war against the winds on earth below while Jack Kerouac sat on the recliner by the lampstand fearing the dark. He led me to the psychic who knew more of me than I even know and probably still has all the secrets she summoned from between my words dried out and saved in glass jars for seasoning on vegan tacos for the next visitor she entertains. He led me to the Captain who loved her and didn’t speak much because she already knew his words anyway. He led me to high ridges with views in all directions. He led me to a trailer where a Stranger poured me a glass of bourbon and shared Her cigarettes in the dark. ⠀
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Her name was California.⠀
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She led me to fields of poppies glowing red with love for all and none. She led me to highways that carry hearts to heaven and hell. She led me to destinations even deeper still. She led me to kelp beds anchored to the skulls of conquered peoples. She led me to endless lines of barbed wire fences that scraped into my flesh and instead of bleeding the wounds poured out cheap wine and could only be bandaged with brown paper sacks. She led me to the top of the steeple of the first mission on her skin where the air was as thin as the plot in these verses and where the smoke has been rising since it was burned to the ground in 1775. She led me to her far north where the trees were once taller than any lie ever told. She led me to a path on the edge of a cliff following a friend as he laughed his way down the mountain. ⠀
⠀
And she led me home.


Cloud Theory: 1969

November 1, 2020

Woven Recollections from the Return of One of Italy's First Surfers, 50 Years Later

I’ve long thought it would be interesting to explore combinations of longer format story-telling with my art in a more intentional way. Back in early 2019 an opportunity finally presented itself. The only problem was that it would require flying to Italy. If you know me, you know I’m not a traveler. Not like that. I can drive all night and all day on Highway One, but never make it to Italy. This rattled my program. I’d have to finally break down and get a passport.⠀ So in late 2019 I traveled to Italy with a surfer I'd only known long enough to drink two beers with. It was his first trip back to Gaeta, Italy, since 1969, and what might prove to be his final opportunity to see the country he fell in love with all those years ago. The details of his story emerged throughout the trip as we navigated the unfamiliar waters of the Mediterranean hunting for waves, and navigated the narrow streets and alleys hunting for cannelloni (a pasta dish that was common in Gaeta in 1969). We were mostly unsuccessful on both accounts. But this was more than just a trip to Italy, it became clear to me that this was a story that was meant for me to tell.⠀ Along the way I got to know this man well. During his time in the US Navy, as a lonely surfer peacefully stationed here during the Vietnam War, he was unknowingly among the first to bring a surfboard to Italy and surf upright along its shores. He wasn’t the first to surf there, and doesn’t think of himself that way, although his time surfing there pre-dates all the recorded history of surfing in Italy that I’ve come across. ⠀ But there's a lot more to all of us than any three-paragraph introduction can convey. This is my written portrait of possibly the first known surfer in Italy, and how our paths briefly merged together just before the world fell apart in 2020. This is the testimony of a life fully lived and a man facing his own twilight gracefully. This is a travel tale of two clueless Americans. This is an homage to the Italian spirit.⠀ This is the story of my friend, Dwight Harrington...  
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Carry My Body

A plein air painting of a broken down hunting cabin on the Lost Coast Trail in Northern California's Humboldt County

08/13/2019

Not quite a proper backstory, and not quite a poem, this one took a rare detour into something else… either way, hope you enjoy the tale.

Food running low. The hunter prays for a kill as he reaches into the dusty cabinet for his last handful of oats before the sun sends the shadows scattering to hide behind every rock and tree they can find. Out the window in the pre-dawn light he sees movement, but when he looks intently there is nothing. Just the grassy flat leading to the precipice over the sea.

But he can’t shake the feeling he’s being watched. And he is. I watched him like a ghost all afternoon as I painted these crumbling remains of his cabin. I watched him bumbling about inside while waiting out the days of rain. Talking to his horse. Carrying the bodies of the freshly dead in the afternoons. Drinking himself stupid under the moons.

Separated by nothing but 30 paces and time, he saw me once or twice and muttered something to himself. The third time he threw a rock with a yell. His aim was good. It passed straight through my chest.

When the painting was finished I packed up my gear while he gathered up his belongings and tucked things here and there into his saddlebags. When we were both ready, he led his horse toward the spot where I stood, nearly looking me in the eye, but in a distant way. He stopped and turned, practically standing in my shoes, and looked back at the cabin one more time. But this time he saw it through my eyes as the earth reclaimed it’s walls and floors, timbers and beams. What was built for man, was now a palace for squirrels and was soon to be nothing but a high patch of ground for the morning shadows to hide behind.

As we both stood there, I watched his memories scatter in the wind. His heart hung in tatters, like a prayer flag on the barbed wire fence, and he let the rest of himself blow away entirely, leaving me there alone with his horse’s reins in my shaky hands. I’m no horse rider. It was all I could do just to mount the beast, but it knew the way, and it would carry my body home.


Eureka- Finding California

October 22, 2014

Artist Matt Beard emerging from a makeshift log shelter on the Lost Coast of Northern California circa 1996

Stories of California: Memories, Recollections, Truth, Lies, and Points in Between

The following collection of short tales was an early attempt to establish a narrative to accompany my art in a book format. A handful were printed to test the waters, but it never went into actual production and publication. Later on, it was submitted to Surfer Magazine and was awarded runner-up mention in a writing contest they held. I thought that was pretty cool for a painter. Most of these stories are based on memories from my youth- junior high, high school, and college years.  Some of them are truer than others...

Part I: The Land

Home.

Deep in the anxious nowhere of Los Angeles,  an old home stands in solemn opposition to the thousands of fleeting glimpses of a rushed humanity that bombard the busy thoroughfare just beyond it’s front steps.  Out on that street there is no longer any memory of the past, it’s been rewritten as a vain attempt at remembering the future. What comes next is all there is, or more accurately, all there will be then, for there is no longer any now. There’s no time for that sort of luxury anymore.  Not out there, anyway. The old home is a different story though.  There’s plenty of now to be had here. There’s shade everywhere, as anything that grows out of the ground has been allowed to just keep on growing.  A huge tree stands in the yard next to the house.  Kids bikes lean against the tree, rusting into permanence at the end of the dirt driveway.  You can stand still here and see time pass.  The joy of now. Stand on the porch and wait for a pause in the traffic, so you don’t inhale the future’s fumes, and take a deep breath.  Oranges.  The past here smells like oranges.  Acres of them.  As far as you could see in any direction.  Grandparents of today were once children here who drank fresh squeezed orange juice because that’s all they had.  They laughed and screamed and rode their bikes in every direction as far as they wanted down the dirt roads between the neighboring orchards. On hot summer days, though, this would get old and they’d complain that they were bored. They would wish that something would happen here, and figuring that it never would, they imagined a different life beyond the orange trees.

Part I: The Road

Roads Worth Travelling.

Most roads worth traveling on started out as dirt roads.  The very best roads probably started out as nothing more than animal trails snaking through the brush.  Ever hike through a remote and untraveled backcountry, far off the trails where folks just don’t go?  Then you know what I’m g…

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Drink Deep

October 21, 2007

For the ordinary soul who owns not a boat or a plane, the only way there is by your own two feet, one step at a time. Unless you are the ordinary soul’s dog, in which case it’s more like your own four feet, two steps at a time or something like that. In other words you’re just gonna have to hike. Eight miles. On sand and cobblestones loosely piled up between vertical mountains and the deep blue sea. Only at low tide. Higher tides and the surge of large swells will submerge that little eroding sand bridge to which your feet (or paws) will hopefully remain planted upon. One such surfer and his dog endured that hike in the late spring one year, after a season of heavy storms, which swelled the creeks and brought with it a series of rock shattering swells and a fierce longshore current that removed all but the most stubborn sand deposits. Oh sure, they scored some quality surf, but it was a ride they took on the hike back that would define the trip. It was one of those days when the low tide wasn’t really very low. Combined with the somewhat unruly and large swell, these were not the optimum conditions for attempting this hike. But since boatless , planeless, and now foodless ordinary souls and their dogs tend to need to get back into town once in awhile, they really had no choice. The day was getting late. Only a mile or so to go and then it happened. The ocean seemed to calm a little, and the air became quiet. There was no reef or sandbars on this particular stretch of sand, just deep water. Taking a check of his surroundings as an alert surfer will do when the ocean changes her tune, he knows he’s in a tight spot. Sheer crumbly cliff greets his left hand, the big lulled ocean his right. Up ahead about 60 yards is a somewhat higher sand berm he’s been heading toward for the last ten minutes. So close, but with the forty plus pounds of gear on his back, it’s a good minute or so away, even at full speed. The swell is running at a 17 second interval. He grunts and picks up the pace, but no sooner than he became aware of making that decision, he sees the deep water welling up on the shore. Seeing the futility of racing this impending wall of water he braces for the worst. He sees his dog running for high ground and as he digs his hands into the course and cold sand he watches the first surge of water envelop his companion of the last seven years. A second later it’s his turn. Larger than he had anticipated, the oncoming whitewater makes quick business of uprooting him and tossing him shoreward into the cliff. Then comes the rebound back to sea. Like a rolling stone he is pulled off the beach, barely getting a gasp of air before going deep into the drink. Being dragged to abnormal depths by the pack on his back he wrestles himself free of it and begins the task of exiting through the large shorebreak. Finally making his way up the beach, he stops and looks for his dog. Scanning the shorebreak for any sign of life, he finds…

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