Following the earthquake, he and his wife Lucia collaborated with the entrepreneur John Zeile to open the Furniture Shop in San Francisco. There he could unleash his combined skills as a craftsman, designer and painter. Mathews and Zeile also established Philopolis Press and published the monthly "Philopolis" magazine, which promoted Arts and Crafts aesthetics in the rebuilding of the city. Among his many mural commissions was a twelve-panel series in the State Capitol Building in Sacramento. Other major commissions included murals for the Oakland Public Library, the Mechanics' Institute Library, the Lane Medical Library at Stanford University's medical school campus in San Francisco, the Supreme Court Chambers of the California Supreme Court Building in San Francisco, and the Court of Palms at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The Mathews mural "Vision of Saint Francis", originally created for the Savings Union Bank in San Francisco, is now in the collection of the Crocker Art Museum.