Drawing on Childhood: Madelyn Goodnight
As a child growing up in Oklahoma, Madelyn Goodnight loved books. Whether her parents or aunts read them to her or she pored over them herself, Goodnight said the memories of her youth — from the Amelia Bedelia series by Peggy and Herman Parish or the Frog and Toad collection by Arnold Lobel — are filled with children’s books.
“I've got so many great books from when I was a kid” Goodnight says. “That was a core memory. I also loved How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight by Jane Yolen; that was a favorite. There are so many. A lot of those books when I was younger really impacted me on a subconscious level and an emotional level. I loved reading those books. I just liked the children's books genre. I still read them even now; I still go to Barnes & Noble and I'll pick through all of them.”
Despite that warm familiarity, Goodnight could never have imagined the feeling she got almost two decades later when she walked into her neighborhood Barnes & Noble in Oklahoma City and saw Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi! — featuring her name on the cover — for the first time.
“It was crazy. It was so exciting. I loved it,” a giddy Goodnight says. “I think I called my mom and my sister and my two best friends and like freaked out in the children's section of Barnes & Noble. It was so, so cool. It was just a dream come true. I definitely recorded it on my phone, for sure.”
Despite being an avid reader and having aspirations at one time to become a professional author, Goodnight’s career path strayed away from writing — she has become a prolific illustrator, graphic designer and fine artist. She still has a passion for stories that focus on Native American children's perspectives, but instead of writing them down, she uses her artistic side to bring those stories to life in the form of illustrations.
Goodnight’s first book was The Pear Tree by Luli Gray, published in 2019 by Oklahoma City’s Penny Candy Books. That led to Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi! by Art Coulson in 2021. She now has six children’s books in publication, with five more on the way — that includes Traci Sorell’s Powwow Day, which was recently selected for the Society of Illustrators 2022 original art show — and is also working on the Netflix children’s series “Spirit Rangers.” But no matter what the project is, she takes the same approach.
“I think as an illustrator, whenever I hear about a new book or someone approaches me with a manuscript, I just think [that] as long as the story speaks to me and has a really great message, and I like the heart in the middle of it, I can almost always just see it playing out in my mind before I even start sketching,” Goodnight says. “I think that that's one of those in-your-gut type feelings, that whenever I do a book I can just kind of see [it] in my mind before I ever put pencil to paper.”
Goodnight earned a degree in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design, and worked as an illustrator and graphic designer in Brooklyn before moving back to Oklahoma City with her twin sister during the pandemic. However, those job descriptions feel limiting to her ample portfolio of skills.
“I think as I have gotten more into art, I just feel so curious about a bunch of different types of media,” Goodnight says. “Even in my career, I do a lot of different things: I do freelance illustration, I do logo design, I do children's books, now I'm doing fine art. So, I do quite a bit all at one time. But I think that just makes it fun, and I love jumping around. I've even kind of dabbled in ceramic and rug-making textiles.”
Some of Goodnight’s latest creative output is now on display at the Chickasaw Visitor Center in Sulphur, in an exhibition that will run through Feb. 28, 2023. This is her first solo showing featuring fine arts since she graduated college in 2018. When she was approached about the project last year, officials told her to do whatever she felt, so Goodnight decided to use the opportunity for some self-exploration.
“I've got five pieces in the show, and they're based on my child's experience,” she says. “I took a lot of inspiration from my Chickasaw heritage. They mainly depict animals that have Chickasaw cultural meaning, they're all native to Oklahoma. I also tried to do lots of flora in the paintings that are all native to specifically Oklahoma. So it was kind of an ode to my childhood and my cultural heritage, and the type of style and aesthetics that I like to use now.”
Whether it is her fine art, book illustrations or any of her artistic endeavors, Goodnight simply wants people to feel good when they come across her work. Just like the books she read as a child, she wants to leave a lasting impression.
“I think if people can kind of see my work and it reminds them of a happy memory or maybe their childhood,” Goodnight said of her hopes for an audience reaction. “I think I pull a lot from my own childhood. I pull a lot from my own cultural background. So, I think that at any point if people look at my work and feel a sense of nostalgia, or it reminds them of a memory that they really hold close or dear, I think that would mean the world to me.”