Sama­ki Fe­li­cian

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

In a world of­ten shaped by rou­tine and rigid ex­pec­ta­tions, Col­in Matthew Reg­is, bet­ter known as “Cre­ative Matt”, chose to carve out a life de­fined by imag­i­na­tion, pur­pose, and re­silience.

At 36, the Port-of-Spain na­tive has turned what be­gan as a ther­a­peu­tic es­cape in­to a full-fledged pro­fes­sion, called Mak­ing Cre­ativ­i­ty Re­al, mas­ter­ing the art of prop build­ing while men­tor­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of cre­atives in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Reg­is, a fa­ther of two and hus­band to Sheena Tang Nian Reg­is, traces his cre­ative path back to a child­hood of move­ment and un­cer­tain­ty. Raised be­tween Care­nage and Port-of-Spain, fre­quent re­lo­ca­tions due to his moth­er’s rental arrange­ments left him with­out a fixed sense of home. How­ev­er, what he lacked in sta­bil­i­ty, he gained in cul­tur­al ex­po­sure, hav­ing ex­pe­ri­ences that now in­flu­ence his artis­tic ex­pres­sion.

“I nev­er re­al­ly felt like I be­longed any­where,” he re­calls. “But mu­sic was my ther­a­py. Lat­er, it be­came art,” Reg­is said.

That tran­si­tion from sound to vi­su­al came nat­u­ral­ly. A stu­dent of Bel­mont Boys’ Sec­ondary School, now St Fran­cis Boys’ Col­lege, Reg­is found en­cour­age­ment from an art teacher who saw promise in his raw tal­ent and in­vit­ed him in­to the art fac­ul­ty free of charge.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, he joined a mu­sic and dance group called Surge at just 14, per­form­ing along­side so­ca artistes like Machel Mon­tano and Bun­ji Gar­lin. These ear­ly mo­ments of val­i­da­tion be­came cru­cial an­chors for the young cre­ative.

But life, as it of­ten does, test­ed his re­solve. Af­ter drift­ing from the scene and en­dur­ing per­son­al strug­gles, Reg­is found him­self in a dark space un­til a group of friends pulled him back in­to the light. They in­vit­ed him to as­sist with par­ty dec­o­ra­tions, a task he ini­tial­ly ap­proached with on­ly a ba­sic back­ground in draw­ing and paint­ing. That ex­pe­ri­ence sparked a turn­ing point.

“They in­tro­duced me to Christo­pher Lit­tre­an, a mas­ter prop mak­er,” Reg­is ex­plains. “That was the first time I saw Sty­ro­foam be­ing carved. I was blown away.”

Lit­tre­an be­came a men­tor, and Reg­is ab­sorbed every­thing from sty­ro­foam tech­niques to stage de­sign and vi­su­al sto­ry­telling. For the first time, he could en­vi­sion a life­long ca­reer. By 18, he wasn’t just an artist; he was a prop builder with a pur­pose.

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with big names in so­ca and en­ter­tain­ment felt like sec­ond na­ture to him.

“I was al­ways around art and mu­sic from a young age, so work­ing with Machel and De­stra in a dif­fer­ent ca­pac­i­ty felt nat­ur­al. It was just a dif­fer­ent kind of stage,” he said.

Even as dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy re­shapes the in­dus­try, Reg­is re­mains de­vot­ed to hands-on cre­ation.

“There’s some­thing deep­er when you work with your hands,” he says. “Cre­ativ­i­ty is some­thing that you have to have the abil­i­ty to adapt, so I think to be full-on cre­ative, you must stay true to cer­tain foun­da­tion el­e­ments.”

One of his most am­bi­tious un­der­tak­ings came in 2012, when he cre­at­ed and ex­e­cut­ed an event called In­side Out, an at­tempt to trans­form an out­door venue in­to a ful­ly im­mer­sive club-like space. Fea­tur­ing a 12x16-foot chan­de­lier and a walk-through wa­ter foun­tain, the set­up was bold and imag­i­na­tive. But just one hour in­to the event, a wall came crash­ing down.

“I was dev­as­tat­ed,” Reg­is ad­mits. “Every­thing that could go wrong did. I had in­vest­ed every­thing, not just mon­ey but my heart.”

But in­stead of giv­ing up, Reg­is sprang in­to ac­tion. With the help of friends and team mem­bers who be­lieved in his vi­sion, he quick­ly gath­ered tools and sup­port. To­geth­er, they worked through the chaos, re­assem­bling the set­up and re­in­forc­ing struc­tures to keep the ex­pe­ri­ence alive for the pa­trons.

“I had a wrench tucked in­to the back of my pants while run­ning around fix­ing things. I re­mem­ber feel­ing it stick my leg when I fi­nal­ly slowed down, it was that in­tense, but I kept go­ing, we all did. The event still hap­pened, and the peo­ple had a good time,” he ex­plained.

The ex­pe­ri­ence, while over­whelm­ing, be­came a defin­ing les­son in re­silience. “It was some­thing I cre­at­ed from scratch, and even though it wasn’t per­fect, it was re­al. And I didn’t let it fall apart. That meant every­thing to me.”

To­day, Reg­is isn’t just build­ing props; he’s build­ing a move­ment. He’s cur­rent­ly de­vel­op­ing a school to teach young peo­ple the foun­da­tions of prop mak­ing, aim­ing to in­te­grate cre­ativ­i­ty in­to main­stream ed­u­ca­tion. His mis­sion is as much about men­tal health as it is about artistry.

“These things played ther­a­py for my up­bring­ing and now men­tal health is a big thing per­sons speak about, so I think that the arts and the mu­sic, well for me is some­thing that I plan to push more out and mak­ing cre­ativ­i­ty re­brand as part of a syl­labus, where we don’t make art just as a hob­by, but part of main­stream ed­u­ca­tion, so that when it is peo­ple feel sad or de­pressed, art and mu­sic can help with that,” he says.

When he’s not sculpt­ing sty­ro­foam or de­sign­ing for ma­jor events, Reg­is finds so­lace in na­ture. He hikes, re­flects, and re­con­nects with the child­hood won­der that fu­els his work.

“Stay­ing in touch with that part of me helps me over­come any ob­sta­cle,” he says.

As he con­tin­ues to evolve, Cre­ative Matt stands as a liv­ing tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of sec­ond chances, the im­por­tance of men­tor­ship, and the trans­for­ma­tive po­ten­tial of art. With plans to teach, in­spire, and in­no­vate, he’s not just cre­at­ing props; he is cre­at­ing lega­cy.