(Artist Feature) Getting Messy, Vulnerable, and Into Industry Trouble with Madeline The Person

Dear reader,

How are you feeling? What music have you listened to recently? I am sitting in Fondren Library, again, and feeling quite bittersweet as I listen to Madeline the Person. Send me music recommendations if you get the chance to, I’m always curious. In my anthropology class, I sat in the discomfort that comes from transitioning life stages. I had my last undergrad class today.

Thank you to Solange, a mad Brazilian multimedia artist who spoke over Zoom to our Culture and Mental Illness anthropology class (the last class I had today!) I cannot fully know Solange’s words, shared in Portuguese, but what she gifted me with in English reads:

“Being heard creates life.”

I know very well what it is like to hear and not to listen. Everything is so busy and our attentions are being pulled all around. We probably still have one earbud in. So there is no need or pressure to ‘listen’, but thank you for hearing. You are here!

The one earbud (non-metaphorical earbud) I have in right now is playing Madeline the Person’s song August. August is one of my personal favorites from her discography because of the line:

“I glued my fingers together, and I can’t see the ground in my room.”

I first met Madeline (she/her) through my dear friend Mckensy when we went to a concert together last summer. I had no idea she was a musician but as soon as I was welcomed into her room it was abundantly clear to that she was incredibly creative, she was at least an LGBT-ally (shortly after I learned that she is a bisexual icon), she is a fellow accessory lover, and oh, hey, I had that same kombucha last week!

Madeline and I have sat on her messy floor before, making charm necklaces for each other in the middle of the summer. I wanted to add more blue beads to the necklace I was making for her, but I lost the tiny ones in the soft carpet covering her floor when I quickly piled the beads of interest. Despite not knowing how to use jump rings, she taught me to fidget around with the jewelry pliers until I got the hang of it. The busyness of her room in all its colorful chaos reminded me of her ability to hold her own heart close and take her hand in the spaces she’s been in.

Above is an image of Madeline performing. Rockstar! She is 20 years old and identifies with neurodivergent thinking. She truly described her relatingship to ADHD with intention and self-compassion. I think she is brilliant. She had bright pink hair when we interviewed over Zoom in February 2022 and is wearing clothes from every shade of the rainbow (usually all in one outfit). First, I went over the process of interviewing, and told her it would take around 30- 45 minutes. We ended up talking for almost two hours. I talked for only about 25 minutes. I feel very lucky to have connected with her the way I did and grateful to be reminded of bravery. She shared difficult experiences as a recording artist and it encouraged me to learn and reflect on what it means to receive intimate information as a researcher, as well as knowing that this information will be shared with the digital world. I took detailed notes afterwards about how the conversation made me begin feeling and thinking. I also drew out some of what she said (in quote/comic form linked below) when I listened to the recording again, image below:

Upon Googling, I’m already offered a glimpse into her creative process. She likes bubbles and board games and she makes songs for her heart. Hell yeah. I love that she makes songs for her heart. The connections she is making are inherently intimate. Her vulnerability inspired me to remember a lesson I learned recently about expressing: expressing yourself is not about winning people over, it’s about finding your community. Madeline says about herself, as she now exists in the professional industry, “I am a recording artist with a label, so I write music for myself and then I perform it and recordings of it go out into the world.”.

There is a rich discussion here about how “finished” art translates into shareability. It has to do with how we commodify experiences and objects as finished products. Us and our art has passed the beta testing stage where it was full of imperfections and is now ready to be marketed. Madeline was talking about her recording process and shared “You don’t get any sunlight; you’re stuck inside for like 8 hours straight. And sometimes we forget to eat. It’s super… it’s not catered to like a human person, at all. And they want like, the most vulnerable songs, ever. I just met this human man, why would I tell him my trauma?”

The following quote was one of my favorite moments in our conversation. I was listening to her speak so hard and I learned a lot about myself, too. Here: “Divergent traits [divergent thinking or overstimulation] in my life, my anxiety, it causes panic a lot. So that’s really hard, it’s hard to navigate that. As a human, as a creator, that’s built into me and I can create fine. But when I’m put in a machine of making songs it doesn’t fit in there, like that part of me doesn’t fit. If I’m hearing too many sounds at one time, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to say ‘Hey, I’m like… overloaded right now.’ But when I’m on my own, it’s such a powerful thing. It’s like a superpower. The way my brain thinks, the way it’s organizing things differently than other people.”

One thing is very clear: we can’t feel on-demand. We can produce on demand, but only if these products are consistently devoid of genuine feeling. Madeline can’t connect with that logic. Genuine feeling is spontaneous, impulsive, and freeing.

Our conversation revealed another question in my research: Why is it that genuine creating and expression often at odds with what we consider to be productive? Art is healing. Healing isn’t linear. ADHD isn’t linear. Queerness isn’t linear. These binaries are limiting. When will we “get better”? What if we don’t want to? What if we literally cannot!

Creating impulsively, which is most genuine for the neurodivergent artists I’ve spoken with, exists in a different timeline from the timeline the “industry” expects. Madeline told me her process of singing and writing music and self expression in tattoos and art and collaging and makeup and clothing and painting that “it’s just whatever feels right, and really beautiful things come out of it. I don’t think I would literally survive if I were to ignore that part of myself and throw that out and just be the like…worker… I need to be.”

Here is a poem from sighswoon that reminded me of my conversation with Madeline and her creative expression, I think you will like it :)

Talk soon, thank you Madeline :) (ur awesome)

Libby