Brian Matzat is Building an Island

When I first meet Brian, standing in the midday sun at a food cart pod in North Portland, he's not what I expected. I don't know what I expected, but he isn't it.

In khaki Chuck Taylors and black skinny jeans, he fits right in. He's well dressed in a way that allows him to step gracefully into Portland's stylish yet self-aware creative scene with a certain air of belonging—which is exactly what he’s done, moving halfway across the country from Milwaukee Wisconsin less than a year prior. He’s a young, talented designer with thick-rimmed glasses and a cool-ass job. More importantly, he's working to establish a nonprofit branch two-thousand miles from home and he's doing it on his personal time. When I hear this, I pause. That's not what I was expecting either. I'm coming to realize that, with this nonprofit, that’s kinda the point.

The organization is called Islands of Brilliance. It was founded in Milwaukee three years ago by Mark and Margaret Fairbanks—if you're unfamiliar, I implore you to do some googling. I also recommend watching Mark's 15-minute TEDx talk about their personal journey: Thirteen Years on an Island. Bring a tissue. Bring a box. Of tissues.

Islands is a breakthrough program that helps children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to express their creativity through the 1:1 mentorship of a creative professional. But it's so much more than that.

The founders' own relationship with ASD started when their son Harry was diagnosed at 2 years old—which you’ve already learned, via the TEDx we agreed you’d watch—and they were told to “lower their expectations.” They didn’t. Mark drew from his role as a creative director at user-centered design firm Translator, and his wife Margaret from her experience as a special education instructor, to concept and prototype a resource. “Islands” is founded on a core objective of “changing the lens from special needs to special gifts." It's working.

In the program, each student is partnered with a mentor and each team creates a project—from initial sketches, to layout in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, to a final group presentation—that results in an 18" x 24" poster that the student then takes home. In addition to gaining knowledge of the design software (and one cool poster), students get invaluable experience in collaboration, sharing and presentation, and socialization. Most importantly, they gain confidence.

Brian told me that the beautiful thing about this model is that the kids, and their creative mentors, both look at the world a little differently. "They kind of think alike," he said, "when they work together, they don't think in boxes." Brian also emphasized how mutually rewarding the program is—it's one of his favorite elements of the Islands model. ASD is marked by varying degrees of detachment from the physical world, but with that challenge comes a remarkable inhibition in creativity. A child with ASD sometimes struggles to engage in the social environment around them, but they also aren't weighed down by the stigmas and cultural norms that limit it. "The creatives get to teach the kids how to express themselves through technology, but it's the students who tend to inspire the mentors with their boundless creativity. It's beautiful… It's awesome."

Today, Islands has a fully sustained program in Milwaukee, including a consistent space to hold classes, their own inventory of Adobe-loaded Macs, and a full roster of dedicated mentors, ready to be matched with each new class of participating kids. Brian tells me that over 90% of their mentors in Milwaukee enroll once, then end up returning multiple times, and several of the students return as well. The team is in talks with an agency in Chicago and they've already run a successful pilot in Minneapolis.

The program has made incredible strides, and that's definitely something to celebrate. But sitting across from Brian on this hot afternoon in August, he's not interested in dwelling on the success of the program. That's not why he's here.

Brian is bringing Islands of Brilliance to Portland. He recently gained a key reinforcement, also from the Midwest, when he was introduced to Peggy Bartman—the mother of a coworker and a former autism professional from Wisconsin. Peggy recently relocated to Portland, and will take on a leadership role from the education side of the new chapter. He's also recently run a successful pilot of the program in Portland, thanks in part to founders Mark and Margaret bringing all the necessary equipment and helping to facilitate the class, and to the epically magnanimous people at Smarsh—an archiving and compliance solutions firm. Brian told me they leapt at the opportunity to offer their space in Southwest Portland as a lab for the program, and went above and beyond their own commitment as hosts. He tells me earnestly, "We literally couldn't have done it without them."

So here we arrive at the crux of the issue with this beautiful concept that Brian is fighting for—a concept so elegantly simple, yet so profoundly impactful, that one can't imagine any reason for it not to be a thing. The reason we're talking today. Between bites of his buffalo chik’n vegan bowl, Brian tells me flatly, "We just don't have anything."

The need is not great, but it's essential. To get a sustainable Portland chapter of Islands up and running, Brian estimates they need eight MacBooks with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator software. They also need a room that they can occupy for evening and weekend courses, and people. "We've got mentors [in Milwaukee] that are everything from creative directors to design students," Brian said. "You just have to know how to use the software, have some patience, and have a desire to inspire and be inspired."

Ultimately, Brian hopes to run a year-round program in Portland, with at least two sessions of eight students each spring, summer, and fall. He’s confident that they’ll get there, knowing that it’s going to take some work. He doesn’t mind. In fact, when I asked him at one point if he'd ever consider doing this full time, he told me assuredly, "I would love that. Yes. In a heartbeat."

To learn more about Islands of Brilliance or find out how you can get involved, visit their website, islandsofbrilliance.org, or contact Brian directly at matzatb@gmail.com.