By Dinorah Prevost
Standing in line at her polling station in south St. Petersburg with weed leaf-shaped felt earrings, she knew she’d get some looks.
“It was really funny because it was all these old people. I thought it was hilarious,” said Madi Clark, a senior graphic design major.
Of all the earrings Clark has designed and sold, the bright green leaves are the only ones that didn’t sell out.
“These are really just crazy to wear in public and I want people to be OK to wear these statement earrings,” she said.
Clark makes earrings as a side hustle under her brand BE MAD, HONEY. She started it last October to “build up her skill so that (she) can work full time in graphic design.”
“The whole idea behind the brand is that I want people to feel free to do whatever they want or wear whatever they want wherever they are,” Clark said.
For now, she’s stuck to producing earrings. She designs them in Adobe Illustrator, cuts the felt shapes out and assembles them by hand. She started out with six designs, and to date, they include yellow stars, lightning bolts, black hearts and a broken heart.
BMH came about as Clark was finding her niche in art and graphic design. She majored in studio art for two years at USF Tampa, even displaying artwork in shows at the USF Contemporary Art Museum.
“Honestly, straight out of high school, nobody really knows exactly what they want to do and I’ve always been interested in art, but never really comfortable enough to the point where I wanted to be a fine artist,” Clark said. “At the time, I was inspired by a lot of people who were doing graphic work and thought it was really interesting.”
The graphic design major isn’t offered in Tampa, so in the spring of 2017, she applied to the St. Petersburg program. Every year, about 70 students apply to the program and only 20 are admitted.
“I basically didn’t know anything at the start about graphic design, and now I feel really comfortable in the field. And I’ve been doing a lot of freelance projects so it just worked out and I’m happy about that.”
Clark started BMH spontaneously, thanks to some felt.
“I bought felt to mess around with for my senior thesis. I thought I was going to use it for lettering and I just started to cut out shapes and then I was like, ‘I could make jewelry,’” Clark said.
“Originally I intended for it to be just (making) jewelry for my friends. And then I figured I should just start a brand because … it’s the perfect opportunity to build a brand and put it in my portfolio.”
Gabriela Calderon, Clark’s best friend and fellow graphic design student, was a model for the initial posts on Clark’s BE MAD, HONEY Instagram account. She was Clark’s “support system” and “someone to bounce ideas off of” in the early days of the brand.
“She does everything. She’s doing her own branding, she takes her own photographs, she packages everything and sends it out. It’s all her. A one-woman show, you could call it,” Calderon said.
“Be Mad” came out of an effort to incorporate Madi into the brand name. “Honey” was added later on.
“I literally spent a week and a half trying to come up with names,” Clark said. “I journaled a lot of different name options and was just pairing words together and I liked the idea of ‘be mad’ because then I could interchange ‘mad’ for whatever word I wanted to use for the name of the earring. When I first started (the brand), I started to name (each earring) ‘be bright’ or ‘be divine’ or ‘be bold.’ And then the ‘honey’ just came for fun.”
Creating earrings and tote bags instead of expensive art gallery pieces is appealing for Clark because they can be affordable art.
“Right now in my life, I like that because if it is more accessible, people will buy it and my name will get out there … especially with social media because you can post all of your work,” Clark said. “It can be really challenging to get your paintings hung up in a studio and then at that point, you don’t know how many people will show up.”
Beyond earrings, she plans to expand her offerings to screen prints on tote bags and T-shirts. Even some Aquarius-inspired art, based on her astrological sign.
“Last year, I spent a lot of time figuring out just how to make it the best. Over the next couple of months, I have high hopes that it’ll grow a lot and the product will be better in general,” Clark said.
And what Aquarius qualities does she relate to best?
“Independent is probably the biggest one,” she said. “Creative, I feel like I’m always in my mind, up in the air and people don’t understand. I love change. I always have to change something about myself to feel refreshed.”
