We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Madison Moon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Madison, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

A theme that I’m always coming back to in my art is mental health. Lately I’ve been working on a magic 8 ball painting, where the answer is “Not Forever”. This idea came to me when I started TMS (a mental health treatment) and I questioned if my sadness was going to last forever.

Madison, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Ever since I was a child, I often felt lonely because I cared so deeply about the world around me. During periods of isolation, I often turned to my inner world to create art; That time put me in a meditative state and allowed me to process difficult emotions about the world. Around the start of the pandemic, I decided to dive deeper into jewelry making – as a way to pass the time and help me financially. During this time I learned many things about jewelry making, one being how often micro plastics showed up around me. It was then I decided to start wrapping micro plastics in air dry clay, in an effort to keep them out of the earth. As an earth sign, the Earth has always meant so much to me but as a human it’s also heavily inspired me and so I want to try to make efforts to protect it.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

If society began prioritizing art and creativity versus police, military, and money the world would be richer. Art is and always has been inherently political, and often shows us what we need and don’t need. The honesty of art is frightening to those who wish to control us. Unfortunately many people are disconnected from their creativity or culture, and therefore don’t question what goes on around them. Art and culture improves connection to ourselves, human beings, animals, and the planet by increasing our emotional intelligence. If we spent time learning languages, cooking new foods, or studying dance, we’d become kinder and much more peaceful. There wouldn’t be a need to search for external validation through control or greed because art provides empathy and awareness.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was letting go of perfection when it came to creating because it was harming my health. There was a time, I experienced heavy mood swings and anxiety because I was mean to myself if I made a mistake. One day I went through an anxiety attack in my art studio, and believed I was an untalented failure. The truth was it was six in the morning, I barely slept, and I was hungry. From then on I learned to prioritize my health making sure to fuel my brain with food, have fun, and let mistakes be made.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.madisonmoon.bigcartel.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/theirnameismoon