Toivoland Studios

29/12/2021

I have been archiving my grandfather Ray Matta's VHS collection, and oh what a treasure chest of time he captured! He would record the local news during big events, and then go back and do a rough edit by shooting the video off the tv screen while adding a different audio soundtrack. There are many of these tapes and I will be putting them out as I get them edited.

This tape was about the big storms of 1995 and all the chaos and havoc they created.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_O-0Y7GNQg

I have been archiving my grandfather Ray Matta's VHS collection, and oh what a treasure chest of time he captured! He would record the local news during big ...

16/12/2021

Toivo loves the snow, but misses playing in the snow with his friend Ray.

30/11/2021

Join Toivo, Oscar and Si as we honor the late great Grandpa Ray Matta on this day, his birthday! We will be playing his favorite polkas and several performances of Ray's from over the years. The full stream will start at 8pm PST. See you there!

Live stream on Youtube. Link Below.
https://youtu.be/omFtxD8-Y6A

Join Toivo, Oscar and Si as we honor the late great Grandpa Ray Matta on this day, his birthday! We will be playing his favorite polkas and several performa...

28/11/2021

I have random vhs tapes that my grandpa made of local news and folklore set to his own overdubbed soundtrack. I am currently live streaming a long loop of such tapes on the website, come follow the link below.

03/11/2021

Hyvää huomenta (Good Morning),
Toivo and Oscar were eager to learn about web design, so I started showing them how to set it all up, but they got bored and decided it was best if they drank coffee and watched me instead. They liked it enough to give it the go ahead for people to check out.. so without further or due, I am proud to present, our website!

https://www.toivolandstudios.org/

Please let me know if anything needs fixed.. (while Toivo and Oscar are pretty good handy-men, they are useless when it comes to the internet, 😆)

Toivo Määttä5 days agoWelcome to the world of Toivo! Greetings world, I want to introduce you to someone/thing very special, Toivo. Who is Toivo? Well, let me introduce you. Toivo: 1)...

03/11/2021

31/10/2021

Hyvää huomenta (Good Morning!),

I want to take this opportunity to introduce you to Toivo and I's old friend, Oscar. Oscar and I use to ride motorcycles all over Toivoland. Oscar is super shy, so he is having me do all the talking today, but I did find some video that Gramps made of Oscar giving a history lesson on the origins and building of Toivoland, WA 98648 and how Toivo and him ended up there with Ray and Rose. (I will post it when Oscar isn't around so he don't get too bashful about it. )

Anyway, Oscar is happy to meet all of you and is looking forward to getting to know all of you better.

Näkemiin-
Oscar and Si

30/10/2021

Hyvää huomenta (Good Morning!) from Toivo,

I had to take the keyboard away from Si this morning to formally say hello and share a piece of wisdom I have obtained from all my years of sitting and contemplating, (maybe someday I will share the story of Toivo: the Missing Years). The piece of wisdom is this:

"Ei se ole rikas, joka omistaa kultaa ja hopeaa, vaan se on rikas, joka tyytyy vähään."

And for my english speaking friends, the translation:
“It is not the man with silver and gold who is rich, but the man who is content with little.”

I found the above statement to be one of the most true statements in my long life, and hope you all find comfort in these words.

I am looking forward to learning how to navigate this new computer world my long-time friend Si is teaching me. I certainly have changed since many of you knew me (who hasn't! especially the last few years!) and I am looking forward to getting to know all of you again, and looking forward to making new friends. Talk to later alligators!

Näkemiin, for now!

Love,
Toivo

(I will post a current photo of myself after I get a makeover, it has been a rough few years and I want you all to see me fresh, and I need to figure out this new fangled technology, UFF DA!)

29/10/2021

My Grandpa wanted Toivo to be famous, and famous he was; pictured here as the the king of the Skamania County Worlds Fair Parade in 1984. Perhaps it is time for Toivo to be famous again?

Who know's what the future holds? 😊

28/10/2021

Recorded in his Toivoland Studios, Ray Matta takes us on a walk through his memory and shares a "few of my favorite songs from days gone by.

Performed, recorded, and compiled by Ray Matta in Nov. 2000 @ Toivoland Studios I, in Stevenson, WA.

Re-released 2021 digitally by Toivoland Studios II (Ray's grandson, Si Matta).

Thank you for listening to these humble songs from one the most humble humans to grace this earth.

2 track album

27/10/2021

The Matta family moved to the Gorge in 1964 to start a new life and raise four boys along the banks of the mighty Columbia River. This short video is a snippet of archives I have been digging up from the vaults of the Matta Family Archives. The music is my grandfather Ray Matta from his album, "Barnyard Serenade".

Dedicated to my grandmother and grandfather, Rose and Ray Matta. The bringers of Toivo!

27/10/2021

Greetings world, I want to introduce you to someone/thing very special, Toivo. Who is Toivo? Well, let me introduce you.

I am the oldest of 10 grandchildren, and arrived into a world filled with imagination and music. My grandfather played the accordion, spoke Finnish when drinking with his brothers and sisters, and loved to tell good stories. My oldest memories are set to the soundtrack of joy, laughter, and the Chicken Dance. Gramps had instruments in every corner and nook- amongst the dusty wisps of paper scrolled upon with poems, music, and blueprints for building. His hands were always inventing something new. When I was 9, he invented Toivoland.

Toivo was an imaginary friend he made out of sawdust flesh, dressed in cover-alls, and who wore a face of permanent marker drawn upon a milk jug. Toivo always sat on an old Ford tractor that was rusty and splintered (unless he was out and about with the Toivoland Band.) Toivo was a Magician, and like the Wizard of Oz, Toivo plowed a yellow brick road dotted with hand painted signs, and paved with the falling leaves of Maples, Oak, and Fir. A network of discovery that spanned 3 acres, and a lifetime. Toivo was always busy- this was Toivo’s land.

It was not until my adult life that I discovered what the word "Toivo" meant in Finnish,

Toivo: 1) Finnish toivo= ‘hope’, ‘wish’, ‘desire’ 1 a)… with an older meaning ‘faith’, ‘trust’, ‘promise’.

I am sharing this story of hope with the world because, frankly, we all could use a little Toivo!
Feel free to join and come along as we take adventures with Toivo!
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAiIaOuniqPpg8E3NcH2Ag
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/toivo_studios/