The smile on his face was a genuine reflection of the excitement he felt as Roanoke Rapids City Council honored the 23-year-old who is profoundly deaf and has autism, his mother, Brenda, said Wednesday.
The creations displayed at the council meeting were only a sampling of the some 500 pieces the family keeps at home, Brenda said.
They included a replica of the theater, the skate park and businesses like Sheetz and Logan’s, all created by a man using a glue gun and cardboard boxes, made after simply studying the buildings and putting them together from memory.
Mayor Emery Doughtie presented Matt a city pin and plans to send him a letter thanking him for his appearance at the council meeting and sharing his creations. “He’s the kind of person that doesn’t let his limitations (get in the way). He’s taking the gifts he has and making the best of them,” the mayor said Wednesday.
“He was so excited,” his mother said.
The appearance at city council has already led to a request from Roanoke Rapids Savings Bank for him to make a cardboard replica of that business. It also garnered a request from the library to put the creations on display there.
“I think he’s a very talented young man,” bank President Edward Jackson said today. “I like what he is doing.”

• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
• Click to open image! Click to open image!
•  

Matt, a 2012 Roanoke Rapids High School graduate, demonstrated a talent for art in school, drawing houses.
He began making the cardboard buildings about three years ago, trying Popsicle sticks at first but liking cardboard better. “A couple of weeks later he cut up a box and a made a little house,” his mother said.
Since then he has crafted cardboard excavators and dump trucks along with the houses. “He started making two- and three-story houses, including the foundations and rooms inside. He just recently started doing businesses, Sheetz, McDonald’s and adding parking lots. He can do it in one evening,” his mother said.
Family friend Betty Staton discussed Matt with Councilwoman Suetta Scarbrough who invited him to the council meeting so fellow members and the public attending could see his work.
“I think he’s very talented,” Scarbrough said today. “I was very much impressed with his ability.”
The family discovered Matt was deaf when he was 9-months-old, Brenda said. “One day his granddad was knocking on the car window and he didn’t turn around.”
He was fitted with hearing aids at 10 months and implants at 2-years-old. In the fifth grade Matt was tested and was diagnosed with autism.
Matt talks but has difficulty comprehending.
Despite his setbacks, losing two years of hearing, he is sociable, his mother said. “He’s always been very sociable. He loves to do stuff for people.”
Brenda sees promise in Matt’s art. “The more he does, the better he gets. He’s sold a few. He uses hot glue and scissors and doesn’t measure anything. It’s perfect scaling. Everyone who sees his work is astonished. When others see it it’s really touching.”
After his autism diagnosis, Brenda always thought, “I would have to teach my son about the world. Now I teach the world about my child. We never treated him different. We would let him ride bicycles.”
While the journey has been difficult, his mother said, education and exposure has helped. “People just need to see he needs special guidance and attention. I expose him to as much as I can. The whole family does the same.”