Profile Of An Artist w/ Madalyn Stefanak Interview
Born and raised in Cleveland, OH, Stefanak grew up with creative parents alongside her three older siblings before relocating to Queens, New York to pursue a career in graphic design and true artistic passion. Stefanak has a very unique style and approach to her work, paying true homages to the counterculture of the 1960s and 70s. Her eye for detail and fascination for fonts and color are simply perfect! In this interview we explore was inspires and drives her work, the incredible clients she’s worked alongside such as Little Wings, Phish, Snail Mail, Folk Yeah Events and many more!
Tell me about growing up in Cleveland, OH. What was your childhood like growing up? When did you first begin to fall in love with music and art? Was this relevant around your household growing up?
I grew up outside of downtown Cleveland in Cleveland Heights. To me, Cleveland is one of the perfect cities. It’s gritty, but friendly, and is close to nature, hiking, etc. My childhood was spent in a pretty open-minded, artsy neighborhood. It was really major for my upbringing to be surrounded by people like that. I had neighbors who were artists for a living - sculptors and filmmakers and stuff like that. I probably wouldn’t have realized that was an option if not for them. My parents are both really creative - not artists for a living - but have always been creative and supported any art I wanted to do. They met at a Grateful Dead show. Music has always been a huge deal for them. And they’re real DIY kind of people, which I think is an art form on its own. My dad is also an incredibly talented drawer and painter - we have tons of his graphite drawings and paintings from high school and college. They look like photographs, it’s really special. He can pretty much build and fix anything, he’s just a super well-rounded guy. Now, he’s an mechanical engineer, so he can really do it all. My mom is also super creative and expressive. She’s been a preschool teacher for my entire life, and a huge part of that work is being creative and innovative. I’ve always felt like little kids are the best artists, and she’s helped nurture that in so many kids. Being able to create a space for that to happen through craft and play is a real talent, and she has that.
She loves antiquing and doing home DIY projects. That’s always had an impact on me. There were a few blocks right by my house on a street called Coventry that had cool shops and a music venue. I bought my first records there - Duane Allman anthology and A Love Supreme! I bought my first bowl down there - ha. And one of my first jobs was at a guitar store near there. That was a big part of my childhood. Music and art have always been the biggest part of my life. They’ve been really intertwined for me. My parents always took my siblings and me to concerts and festivals. They always had good music on, my dad would listen to blues music in the mornings on the weekend. My extended family is really big and we always played music together growing up. My uncle plays banjo and my cousins are great flat pickers, and my siblings play, too. We’d play lots of John Prine songs and everyone would sing. So that’s always been around. There wasn’t really a single moment when I realized that music and art were my thing. It was just never really questioned. But music has always been the main part of it for me. Music has informed my visual art every step of the way. I taught myself to draw portraits because I wanted to draw musicians, album covers and vintage posters were my way to understand design (because I don’t have traditional design training). Basically all of my art has had to do with music for as long as I can remember.
Do you have any siblings? What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your formative years both musically and artistically? What led to the decision to move to Queens, NY? How has this impacted your art and creative process?
Yes - I’m the youngest of 3. I have an older sister and brother. My sister is a nurse and her husband is a farmer. They live on their farm with their kids. And my brother is a screenwriter/TV writer in LA where he lives with his wife. They’re both really creative and very into music. We’re incredibly close. Growing up I played around the neighborhood with the other kids, rollerbladed, drew and painted a lot, taught myself guitar. My best friend and I would write funny sketches and use my family’s video camera to film ourselves. We’d write commercials for dumb stuff, or make up a whole talk show (complete with a theme song). We had a blast. I’d give anything to find those tapes - I’m pretty sure they’ve been accidentally taped over. A lot of my childhood was spent with my family - I have a ton of cousins and there were lots of gatherings. A lot of music was involved in those. I skipped my junior prom to go to a music festival with my parents - ha. A lot of stuff like that. My earliest musical influences were some of the usual suspects - Paul McCartney, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan - but in like, eighth grade or so I started finding other music. Bonnie Raitt, Duane Allman, Howlin Wolf, Patsy Cline, BB King. I saved money to buy a used Gibson 335 around that time because I loved Freddie King so much and wanted to learn how to play like him. And I had a guitar teacher back then name Pete who was really great. Around that time I got into the Derek Trucks Band and Susan Tedeschi and The Wood Brothers, which really changed the trajectory of my life I think.
I ended up touring and working with them all one summer. Tedeschi Trucks Band and The Wood Brothers were touring together. Weirdly enough, one of my drawings - a big portrait of Sister Rosetta Tharpe - was purchased as a gift for Oliver Wood, and I went to a show to deliver it to him. We started talking, and The Wood Brothers crew ended up needing an extra hand on that tour. I was just at the right place at the right time. So I dropped out of college and joined the tour later that week. My mom drove me, like, 8 hours to meet the tour. It was such a whirlwind. I didn’t have a lot of experience but I’m a fast learner and was just ready to go. I got on the bus that summer and toured with them as a PA for 3 years full-time until Covid hit. So it was just a crazy, amazing time - I kind of still can’t believe that all happened to me. It was so formative. I learned so much and formed my closest, lifelong relationships. I really owe a lot to The Wood Brothers and crew. So, that’s a long winded way to say that I moved to NYC because of that summer. On that tour I met someone who later became my boyfriend! He is from NY. I moved to Queens because we’d decided to live together. I’ve been there with him for almost 5 years now. New York has been really important for my growth as a person and an artist. There’s so much going on, so much to balance, and it can feel really lonely sometimes. So it’s pushed me to learn more about myself. There’s so much art and great design around all the time. It helps to be steeped in it.
You’ve worked on some incredible graphics and illustrations for folks such as Phish, Indigo Girls, Snail Mail and one of my personal favorites, Little Wings. When did you notice your work was beginning to take off and you began to get all these incredible opportunities?
When Covid hit and I stopped touring, things in my life really shifted. I went through some dark times and did a lot of soul-searching. I was applying to all kinds of random corporate jobs that I didn’t understand, that I would have hated if I’d gotten them. And one day a switch just flipped inside of me. In January of 2022 I decided to make a real effort to try freelance design/art. I decided life is too short to hate your job, or yourself, so I put everything I could into it because I didn’t really know what my other option should be. It was really scary at first. I’d done some commissioned work before, but it was always a side thing. I don’t have a design degree, and a lot of my knowledge of design comes from trial and error, and from spending hours and hours going through album design, vintage magazines, fliers, books, etc. I thought I wouldn't be qualified to really design anything because I didn’t know the technical terms. But I figured some of it out. And I’m still figuring it out! It’s a constant journey. I had a lot of support from my family and parter at that time. They all said I needed to give it a real shot. I’d had some money saved up from touring, and was prepared to burn through all of it and scrape by as a freelancer. But those first six months went really well. I’d already had some connections in the music world because of touring, so that totally helped in the beginning. I started posting things and gradually got more work. Social media is a helpful tool in that way. It helps people like me who are mostly self-taught connect with art directors and companies and labels. I’ve started seeing myself in a different way because of that. The imposter syndrome has lessened, but it’s still there.
What have been some of your favorite projects to work on and why? How much has your work evolved since you first started out on this journey?
I have a lot of favorite projects. Too many to name - they’re all really fun for me because I do really enjoy the work. I really like my recent work for Woollystar Music Festival because they trusted my vision and I love how it turned out. And the poster for The Heavy Heavy - that was a completely new process for me. I experimented with watercolor painting over a photo of my hand, and some digital airbrush illustration. I also love the Mikaela Davis posters I made, the Phish shirt, the Grateful Shred shirt. Because I’m still figuring so much out, I don’t really feel like I have a set style. Which is a blessing and curse sometimes. It lets me try new stuff all the time and not be pigeon-holed. So my work has evolved a lot. But the common thread has always been hand-drawn illustration, pretty much everything drawn by hand, with an overall vintage style. There’s a lot of collaging together bits of things drawn on paper, doodling things in ink and maybe redrawing them digitally, graphite drawings on paper that I edit digitally, redrawing things inspired by vintage design. It kind of changes with every project. I just like to have fun.
What do you find yourselves expressing, or exploring the most through your art? What have you got in the works as 2023 continues to roll out nearing Spring/Summer? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
In my personal art right now, I focus a lot on fun, silly stuff that has a flavor of seriousness having to do with how small we are, the comedy of mankind, etc. I’m not really sure where it comes from. I like to experiment with design as art. I think it’s my way to teach myself more about design in a low-stakes way. Illustrations inspired by Schoolhouse Rock paired with some vintage typeface, or an abstract collage of drawings from something I doodled on an envelope. Some of that comes from my internal exploration with meditation. A lot has to do with how I feel about ~the universe~ or what happens when we die, even though my art doesn’t always make that obvious. A lot of stuff I went through during some dark times comes out subconsciously as silly little doodles. It’s kind of a way for me to be spiritual, and I don’t share a lot of it. Because I don’t have a lot of time for personal work, I like to make things in one sitting when I get the chance. Just quick little things that feel good in between design jobs. Overall I just like to make things that I like to look at.
I don’t worry about being technically correct, or following rules because I don’t really know what all the rules are. I have a bunch of projects in the works right now. I’ve been really lucky to have consistent work. I’m working on a few larger illustrated book projects right now which is fun. I’d like to spend more time making paintings this year just for myself. I also like writing, so I’d like to pair some poems with drawings and make a zine, likely about climate change or something. I’d also love to eventually be in a band. Something causal and fun. I love singing and I’d love to get back into that. Adding in a little plug for the new Amy Ray album called If It All Goes South - my boyfriend produced it and it’s great. They even let me sing background vocals on a song. Amy is a really great person and musician. So check out that record if you haven’t. Overall, I try not to take myself too seriously. And I’m working on not comparing myself to other designers too harshly. I love this job and feel fulfilled doing this kind of work. I love the freedom it gives me. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I’m excited to see how my work changes this year.
