Matthew Lovein

Matthew Lovein


Matthew Lovein

Born January 14, 1949, artist, Matthew Lovein, along with his artist wife, Mary, resides in the coffee farming town of Holualoa, located on the slopes of Hualalai Mountain, above Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Matthew Lovein remembers, “I first became excited about art as a child.  Both of my parents loved to paint with oils.  I used the medium of charcoal and pastels to capture inspirations during my nature walks.” Matthew Lovein learned photography from his father, Elvin Oscar Lovein in their home darkroom.   As a boy, Matthew also created metal etchings and wood carvings. As an adult, he worked in the engineering department in a California Water District. Soon after meeting Mary from Maui, he made a decision to work for himself. Matthew Lovein opened a full service wood working shop where he constructed free standing furniture as well as high end custom kitchen designs.  

He began working with clay and the potter’s wheel as a hobby and got more serious when he studied Raku Ceramics at Laguna College of Art.  Matthew Lovein has become an accomplished artist, creating sculptures of clay, glass, metal or combinations of those elements.  His ceramic forms, which are original, yet, classical looking, often have an Oriental flavor.

Matthew Lovein’s signature piece, called the Wish Keeper is his original design and concept which first began in 1992.   Mary explained, “He woke me in the night and said, ‘I’m going to make a Wish Keeper. I’ve seen it in a dream’.”   

Making other shapes and sizes of Wish Keepers developed into various sculptures and other mediums.  The artist’s dreams continue and Matthew Lovein's art takes on new forms and world class works of art such as Suspended Lid, Haiku, Six Foot Eight,  Myphoria , The Oracle,  to mention a few. Matthew Lovein's expansive studio is equipped with kilns for firing glass and ceramics and a metal working shop.