Madi Weber

they/she

Queens, NY, USA

Madi Weber (they/she) or Mix n Mad is a queer artist from Nashville, TN who’s currently creating in Queens, NY. As a designer, their inner child’s imagination comes to life through the creation of bold, bright jewelry and adornments. Madi uses colorful, often mismatched components to inspire play and challenge perfectionism through their work. They were a recent participant of the Bead Project at Urban Glass where they learned glass beadmaking under Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez.

“Madi Weber (Mix n Mad) created this necklace as part of their debut glass collection, Slippery When Wet, which features their signature bead, a hollow, flameworked glass bead that resembles a liquid mid drip. In this piece and their current collection, they were inspired by the slimy messes and glowing colors of construction sites observed in the city streets. The colors and shapes depicted in their work illustrate their inner child’s daydreams, while the fluid nature of their work meditates on the expression of their gender and its own fluidity.”

@mixnmad

How does your work relate to the theme transformation— How does the work translate joy into strength?

"My work is the product of my transformation, an adult’s journey back to my younger self. As a queer kid, I enjoyed color-coordinating my outfits, making jewelry, and writing poetry. At the age of 10, I started my first small business with my best friends, “HML Jewelry”, based on the first letter of our three names. We collected beads and made jewelry that we dreamed of selling in stores, but ended up showcasing in our neighborhood, lemonade stand-style. Younger Madi was mesmerized by artists I encountered, especially those wearing bright colors and body decor. I yearned for the freedom to express myself in such an honest way, which had never been modeled in my family of artists denying their own art. As I grew up, colors faded a bit and I held my creativity less closely, pursuing a career in education.

In 2020, I moved to New York for a new teaching position, yet found myself mesmerized again by the artistry and innovation surrounding me. I rediscovered dreams of becoming an artist myself and made the decision to leave education and make space for a creative life. Through therapy and healing, I learned to trust my inner child, came out as queer, quit my job, started my small business, and began honoring myself as the artist I have always been. At 27, I learned how to play again, using my intuition to guide my next artistic choice. I cut my hair, collected tattoos, began displaying androgynous style, and allowed myself to return to my younger artist self. I left my role as a teacher, to find the role of a student again, learning new artistic skills. I started making jewelry (again), found community in other artists, and designed adornments that express my queer identity and allow others to do the same when they wear my art. Most importantly, I learned to prioritize my inner child’s joy, which is how I found flameworking and created this glass jewelry collection. This necklace is integral to that collection and is a reminder that my artistic journey will always be fluid."

"Slippery When Wet", Stainless steel, vegan suede, Italian soft glass, 12"x3", 2023

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"This work was made during my participation in the Bead Project, a scholarship program where I learned glass beadmaking and important entrepreneurial skills. Learning and participating in the Bead Project, I was back in the role of a student, unfamiliar territory after being a teacher for 7+ years. While this experience allowed me to learn more about my inner child’s joy, it also showed me my inner child’s pain which believed I was not talented enough to be an artist. This was my first opportunity working in a studio amongst other artists and I sometimes compared myself and felt ashamed that I wasn’t as “talented” as the incredible glass artists and jewelry makers I was meeting. These beliefs were not my own, but had been passed down to me through a more critical and perfectionistic lens. Through this program, I felt the undoing of this perfectionism and allowed myself to play, make mistakes, and allow accidents to happen. My signature hollow drip bead was a result of one of those accidents which I repeated and developed. While this bead not only looks like a liquid, because it is hollow, it can hold a liquid after being submerged in water."