Art sparks joy for NC cop, former Marine. His department is sharing it with the world.
It started as a friendly workplace competition, but now a Hillsborough police officer’s love of art is spreading joy in the community.
So far, Officer 1st Class Matthew Lorenson has sketched an imposing bald eagle and the grinning face of actor Jim Carrey’s “Grinch” on the whiteboard in the Hillsborough Police Department’s meeting room.
The doodles are “a hit,” one Facebook follower wrote, suggesting the department auction off Lorenson’s art next year to raise money for its Christmas toy drive. Another reported that her 9-year-old son thought the Grinch was “so cool!” He loves art, too, she said, and wants to be a police officer someday.
On Wednesday, Lorenson added a velociraptor’s roaring head to the whiteboard, propping his arm with an eraser to avoid smudges.
Drawings on flat surfaces need more lines to create more dimension, he said, but the whiteboard is especially tricky because it’s a vertical surface and it’s easy to accidentally erase the lines.
“It’s hard to pull off with a magic marker,” Lorenson, 31, said about his first doodle of the Grinch. “I only drew it because another officer drew that (Dr. Seuss Grinch) first. I can’t be outdone — not on our whiteboard here,” he said.
As a child, he was shy and didn’t talk much, Lorenson said. Growing up near Sacramento, California, with a brother and two sisters, he would immerse himself in books about animals and dinosaurs at the library, practicing how to draw their forms.
“I like dinosaurs a lot, so I draw them a lot,” he said, flipping through a sketchbook of detailed drawings. “Pretty cool-looking things. I can’t imagine what the first person thought when they dug that up.”
After school, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps, moving to North Carolina and serving from 2012 to 2016. He got a job as an animal control officer and earned a degree in computer animation, but found digital art to be “very robotic,” he said.
“Everything is just a mathematical formula, and art just doesn’t seem like that to me, so I just didn’t have any interest in it,” Lorenson said.
His first law enforcement job was in Lenoir County, and in 2022, he moved to Hillsborough, where he lives with his cat, Mango.
“I feel like helping people is the only thing that makes me happy in life,” Lorenson said. “You could go on all day about what law enforcement officers do, like writing tickets or arresting people, but I like unlocking people’s cars for them … or changing people’s tires.”
Some people do stereotype police based on the bad cops, Lorenson acknowledged, but every job with authority attracts bad people. Humor helps if someone is especially frustrated or angry, he added, and he tries to be empathetic about what led them there.
That’s harder when kids are involved, he said.
“You have no idea how people grow up, and you see some kids ...,” he said, pausing to let his emotions pass. “If their parents are acting like kids, how are they going to act like an adult? That’s a bit aggravating to see.”
When he’s not on the job, Lorenson works part-time at a local gun store and as a gunsmith, or goes fishing and exploring the woods with friends. He likes to draw with pencil on paper or paint with acrylics on canvas, creating pictures for friends’ birthdays and for fun.
He’s been considering a portrait of a Hillsborough K9 officer for his next whiteboard project, he said.
“I just like drawing — that’s as simple as it is,” Lorenson said. “It makes me happy. Police work makes me happy for the most part and calms me down. It’s like fishing. It just distracts you.”
This story was originally published December 24, 2024 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Art sparks joy for NC cop, former Marine. His department is sharing it with the world.."
