Consider: Meet Madison
Some Sort of Introduction
I have been wanting to write a sort of Hey, you’re new here! introduction to myself for a few months. The internet can feel so one-dimensional. If all you know about me is the fish bag, or nature photography, or my quilt, or one of my books—it might be time to zoom out across the creative journey that lives here. No matter the reason you’ve found yourself here, I am so glad to have you with me. In all, what unites this newsletter is that I am writing to you. So, get to know me!
Let’s start with this quote with M.C. Richards: “All the arts we practice are apprenticeships. The big art is our life.”
More and more, this feels like an apt summary of my creative practice. It is never about one thing, one piece, or one art. I care about the act of making things, and from that crafting a life that feels like a channel for art, creativity, and beauty itself.
There are through lines that I can trace back to my childhood. I have always loved color, big projects, and variety.
I loved fuzzy art—remember that? Coloring pages with fuzzy felt lines. I colored dozens and dozens of posters. One, completely sun-bleached of color, still hangs in my grandma’s kitchen.
When I was in high school, I found a love for cake decorating. I took classes and started my own little business. It was a very stressful endeavor, and I quickly burned myself out on both the time and financial pressure of making for other people. It’s a lesson that continues to be relevant and learned today.
I also loved photography in high school. Working in the darkroom felt like indulgence and magic—it’s the first time I can remember really feeling like I was in a creative flow. I loved being able to bring in other techniques, like embroidery and collage, to take the pieces into new arenas.
And the truth I know in my heart about that time (but that isn’t well-reflected in what I have saved) is that I had always wanted to be an illustrator. But, I didn’t feel like I was naturally good at drawing. It took me a long time to move past that.
In college, I studied fine art, which was not a good fit for me. In my classes, I went through critiques where I tried to stop people from finding symbolic meaning in my visual art. In my free time, I made art to sell, which felt like the only way I really knew how to do it.
I picked up a lot of crafts in that time, and for that I’m really grateful. Many of those puzzle pieces (sewing, embroidery, illustration, pottery, photography, wearable art) are huge parts of my practice today. They were the right things in the wrong configurations.
My time immediately after college is much harder to define and structure, but it’s also the time that some of the most important stuff happened.
For one, I started to really believe that I was capable of being an illustrator. I had been drawing all this time, but I didn’t have a lot of faith in my work. In 2020, something clicked, and I created a painting and drawing practice that felt consistent, rewarding, and had an upward trajectory for the first time. The work I made in 2020-21 is very different from the work I make now, but it laid a lot of incredibly important groundwork and confidence for me. As I developed my personal practice, I also moved further from selling individual pieces of art.
At this time, I was also working as an editor at a children’s book publisher. In college, my other major was English. Books are an absolutely critical part of my life (and always have been), so I felt lucky to be breaking into a dream career as an editor. But, being there also reminded me of a lifelong dream so far deferred: to illustrate my own books. And, with a love of writing that sparked in college, I knew that I wanted to create my own children’s books.
I wrote two picture books while I worked with that publisher. I definitely didn’t feel ready to illustrate whole books at that time, and was absolutely relieved to work with the amazing artists that I did!
Writing and publishing two picture books so early in my career was a dream come true! They released in 2021 and 2022, and taught me a lot about what I wanted to do with my book career moving forward. I knew that it was an amazing step toward my dreams, and also that there was still more pivoting to do.
In 2021, I switched my full time job and began working as a non-fiction arts & crafts book editor (where I still work now). While I wouldn’t have thought it possible, it was an even better fit for me! All of my children’s book energy became available for my own books, and I started learning a ton from the incredible non-fiction artists/authors.
I’ve written about this moment before; it’s what I think of as the turning point in my art practice. In the spring of 2022, I started to sew. And, letting myself add another craft to my retinue allowed myself to embrace all of the kinds of art I wanted to be making. Up to that point, I felt a lot of angst that I was trying to do too many things. I didn’t know how to be good at all the stuff I loved doing. In that moment, I realized I didn’t have to be good at any of it to be happy, really. I just needed to do it.
Email cutting off this post? Read the whole thing on Substack.
In the past three years, then, I have been building a creative practice that celebrates all kinds of making. I do my best to make room for them all, and in doing so, make every part of my life a recognition of the magic it makes. I bake and cook; I spend a lot of time outside with birds and plants; I grow things; I love.
And, this newsletter talks about all that stuff, all jumbled up, in all kinds of ways and orders and formats. It’s rooted in building a home, making things, being present with the things around me.
Meet My Apprenticeships
So, if you’ve walked this winding path with me, you might be wondering what you’ll find here, today, this year, coming from my desk. These apprenticeships are the crafts that bring the magic of making to my life, and I am happy to give you a little update on them.
Life
From my everyday life, I’ll share food and recipes, gardening, foraging, nature logs, and other homey/lifestyle stuff. This is my way of saying I might write about anything on this newsletter.
Books
The truth is that I often don’t share much about my book projects on here. That’s because the industry standard is to keep things under-wraps until a book is actually coming out. But, when I have updates to share, I’ll absolutely share them! In the past 2 years, I’ve written a middle grade novel and a YA novel. This year, I’m focusing on my in-progress picture books as well as the next steps toward publication. Artist-in-residency time I share is also often focused on my books. Last year I gave some insight into my novel-writing process, & in 2023 I shared about my time at Tofte Lake Center.
Natural Dye
I absolutely love the process of natural dyeing, and when I first started writing this blog, it was featured a lot! One of my early natural dye posts is still one of the most viewed pages on my website. I don’t currently have the capacity to do natural dyeing in the way I want to at the place I live; but, I think that will be changing within the next year or so!
Illustration
While book illustration stays secret, I will keep sharing other illustration work and behind-the-scenes process stuff. I am super proud of the start of my Trading Cards series, and here’s a post on plein air from last fall. I have a full portfolio on my site.
Ceramics
Similarly to natural dyeing, I just don’t currently have the workspace for ceramics. While the timeline for changing that is longer, it’s still in the works!
Textiles
Finally, I share so much about sewing and textiles on IG. I sew as a personal practice, but I also make sewing patterns (and have a couple things brewing for release this year!). This year, I’ll be sharing at least a few walkthroughs of some of my longer term projects (knitting, quilting, embroidery) on Substack. I also share more nitty-gritty details on Threadloop.
I’d love to meet you too! What brought you here? What do we share in our practices? Where do you find the magic of making?
Wow! You are an inspiration! I loved reading your story, thank you for sharing! 💖 So happy I found you! It was the chicken bag! A fun piece of wearable art!
She’s an icon, a legend (and a real life personal inspiration always)