Maddison Chaffer: Meet the Artist
Meet Maddison Chaffer an influential, muralist creating and illustrating across the city of Grand Rapids! Maddie has worked with Lions and Rabbits through murals at Brewery Vivant and 2021 Barricades. They tackle complex themes through vibrant colors and shapes. Get the inside scoop about their work below!
Q: How did you get involved with Lions and Rabbits?
A: I did a mural for Brewery Vivant with the 2020 After Dark project!
Q: What themes/ideas are highlighted in your work? Intentions?
A: My work is greatly driven by my interest in evolutionary science and the intersection between physical reality and spirituality. In simpler terms, How Stuff Works! My work breaks down a complex scientific, social, or spiritual topic into simpler visual terms; by rendering some esoteric concept in colorful, exaggerated shapes, I try to engage a wide audience of folks who may not otherwise have delved into the subject matter. I adore murals specifically as a medium because they allow learning to happen as an encounter rather than as an obligation. With street art, there are no entrance fees, dress code, art history class, or reading required.
After Dark 2020: Brewery Vivant
Q: Run us through your creative process - How do you start, flow and finish?
A: Most of my stuff starts with a Youtube rabbit hole. I take a super generalized concept like "vinyl records" and then spend a couple hours delving into the history, the physics, the social impact, the biology, the cultural significance. By the time I've burned through a couple dozen videos from niche corners of the internet, I usually have a decent idea of the story that I want to tell in a piece. While I'm watching some 100 year old fisherman with 88 views explain Great Lakes ecology or whatever, I'm kind of mindlessly taking visual notes. From these sketches I can start piecing together a fuller composition.
Q: What obstacles/struggles have you encountered throughout your career as an artist? Or challenges you face through your creative process
A: Monetizing a hobby, especially something that feels as sacred and personal as art, is risky business. I've spent years burnt out and bitter about art making because of how closely it got tangled up with paying my rent and staying fed. I stopped doing art professionally all together a few years ago and started back at square one, with art strictly as a hobby. Quitting art was the best thing I've ever done. As I started to disconnect art from my finances, I started to actually enjoy making again. Nowadays, art is my full time job again. But I'm super vigilant about keeping a line drawn between Job Art and Personal Art. I have to protect my personal work from monetization in order for it to still feel rare and authentic to me
Q: Can you share a little more about how your art career started. Have you always been in your field? Were you self taught or had additional schooling?
A: I started drawing when everybody else did, as a little kid, but I just never stopped! I probably started making work more deliberately in middle and high school. I grew up with a lot of early internet art sites that encouraged me to hone my illustration skills, but those sites also gave me a massive complex; I was constantly comparing myself to professionals and full-time hobbyists around the world. Illustration in the 21st century is a really intimidating field to get into. I tried to break into the game by moving to LA and later New York, volunteering my time, doing freelance gigs here and there, selling prints in the subway stations, etcetera etcetera, but I got really discouraged by my lack of “success.” I moved away from New York, quit freelancing, and almost quit art all together. It wasn’t until I started teaching art to kids that I started to feel optimistic again. Kids have such an intrinsic love for drawing, a totally shameless knack for it. Nowadays, I try to tap into that kind of joy instead of getting wrapped up in constructed adult notions of success.
Q: Who/what are your biggest inspirations that play a key role in the work you produce?
A:
Most of my art is inspired by stuff that isn’t art! I make a lot of work that relates to philosophy, technology, and evolutionary science. You can probably trace the subjects of my illustrations or murals at any specific period back to the book I was reading at the time. Otherwise, I spend most of my free time foraging and learning about Michigan wildlife. Just like making art allows me to more deeply engage with an intellectual concept, foraging allows me to physically rely on the earth around me for nutrition. I feel more involved, more at home in the world! It’s only from this kinship with the environment that I’m able to balance different aspects of my life—something that’s hard to do when art is simultaneously my job and my passion.
Q: Is there anything you wish you could change about your work?
A: I would love to explore more time-based mediums like music and performance! Visual art is eternal, in a way; it's the show posters that live on after a concert is over, you know? Each medium has its own strengths and drawbacks. I'm interested in more immediate, temporal work just because I really value the experience of making the work itself. I always like my murals a lot more when I'm actually in the thick of it, feeling my brushes dry out in the hot sun or feeling my toes go numb on a windy day. If I could figure out a way to make the experience itself central to my work, that would be a huge step for me!
Q: What mistakes have you made? What did you learn from them? What are you trying to get better at?
A: When I was starting out, I had a pretty narrow definition of success. I was obsessed with getting "discovered" and "famous" and "immortalized" for my work. And I think it ruined my work all together! I was trying so desperately to turn art into a career that my enjoyment for making completely evaporated. Moving back to Michigan after living in LA and New York was a big help. Instead of competing for lofty positions in the art world, I relearned how to make art for myself. Slowly, I started making for my friends, then my community. Now I'm back to art making full time, but it feels different. It's the difference between trying to grow a plant from seed versus buying its fruit from the grocery store. When you take it slow and organically, you'll have a plant that produces fruit for years and years, rather than the immediate gratification of a finished product.
Q: Do you feel supported by your community as an artist? In what ways could you feel more supported?
A: Very supported, It'd be great if there was some more guidance on finding grants and funding! There are a couple that are very visible but I always have trouble finding less well-known funding for projects.
Q: Describe a moment when you felt most proud of yourself
A: I love the feeling of coming off a wall after a really long day of painting. My body feels like jello and my hands are sticky with paint and I go to bed at 9 and it's perfect!
Q: What's most important to you about what you create, and how it impacts others?
A: Murals are the perfect marriage of my love for drawing and my distaste for being inside. Plus, I love being able to make stuff that is so directly tied to our community. Since murals are usually public, it’s really important for me to understand the neighborhood that a project inhabits and to consider what residents will want to see on a daily basis. I aim to design murals in a way that is engaging and thought-provoking so that folks can continue to find new elements over time. At the end of the day, these murals belong to the neighborhood!
Q: What's next? What are you currently focusing on or looking forward to?
A: I'm starting to book new mural projects for the spring and summer! I'm doing one right next to Rosa Parks Circle that is has a 100% Michigan theme. I'm excited to see people interact with the wildlife and ecology I love so much!
Q: What does being an artist mean to you? What is the function of artists in society?
A: I love illustration because, when done really well, it functions as a universal language. Like music and body language, illustration can transcend literacy, education level, cultural background, and social class. A lot of my work is educational in that I try to explain a complicated concept by breaking it down into constituent parts. I like using visuals as a teaching tool exactly because of their accessibility. With public art especially, I can make ideas available to people who may not otherwise feel comfortable in a science museum (a lot of reading) or an art museum (kind of elitist; way too air conditioned).
Q: And of course, if you could chose any vehicle to travel, real or imaginary what would it be?
A: zooming around the ocean in the belly of a whale
Follow more of Maddie’s work on maddisonchaffer.com and instagram.com/son.visual
Thank you for tuning into this week’s Meet the Artist, be sure to checkout more artist stories every week on our blog!
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