MADISON (Mad.e)

In this episode, we sit down with Madison.

Madison is the founder of Arts with Madison, a creative education platform centered on expression, confidence and empowerment through the arts. She works with young people and communities to help them find their voice, build self trust and feel seen, using creativity as a tool for self discovery rather than perfection.

She creates and teaches through workshops, mentorships and creative programming, and she recently started her own LLC, Maddie Arts LLC, with her website Arts with Madison. Her painting practice includes large scale abstract expressionist landscapes, collage, and mixed media, often using accessible materials and a focus on emotional honesty over rules or labels.

Madison also leads a global collage project built from a complete 1982 to 2016 National Geographic collection she found under a tarp in Virginia. That project, now installed in places like Resource Depot in South Florida, invites people to create six by six collages from a single magazine issue, connecting personal stories, world history and shared reflection on how history repeats itself.

In this episode, Madison and Kirk talk about her path through volunteer work and travel in places like Cambodia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Uganda, the evolution of her National Geographic project, her tension between helping others and learning to set boundaries, and how art functions as language, therapy and community. They get into teaching, mental health, failure, collaboration, and what it means to follow a calling that feels bigger than you.