Maddie French loves two things: Art and bugs. And so, she combined them into her career.
Maddie French — aka the Bug Girl — just graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in illustration and launched the Bugafier, a walk-up booth where she’ll draw you on the spot — as a bug.
So, we obviously had to try it out. So, we invited Maddie to our studios to draw me. She came in dressed in a bug-print dress and that’s where we began our conversation.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Let’s actually start with that. Tell us about your dress. What’s on there?
MADDIE FRENCH: Oh my gosh, there’s so many — this dress is called like "Worst Bugs Bug Dress." And it’s just like literally every bug you could imagine under the sun. We got some centipedes on here, we got some beetles, we got some spiders, some like slug-looking things. Like honestly, everything is on this dress, it seems like.
LAUREN GILGER: And you wore it for your graduation?
MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so underneath the, you know, the cap and gown was my bug dress.
LAUREN GILGER: That’s awesome. So, OK, this whole bug girl thing is not just like a cute gimmick that you thought of to sell your art. Like this is deep for you. You’ve always loved bugs? Tell us about it.
MADDIE FRENCH: Oh yeah. Yeah, no, totally. I mean, I was always that kid who was like lifting up rocks and like picking up rollie pollies and stuff. Me and my mom found out recently, we were looking at some old pictures, and we realized that my nursery was even bug-themed. I mean, I had like there was like bug stamps on the wall, so, yeah, this is something that goes back since like probably infancy, honestly.
LAUREN GILGER: Apparently. That’s amazing. But at the same time, you’ve also always kind of wanted to be an artist, right? You’ve always been drawing.
MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, definitely. That was always kind of like the thing that I would write down on the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" is an artist.
LAUREN GILGER: And you recently graduated college with a degree in art, right?
MADDIE FRENCH: Yes, yes. I got my BFA in Illustration from the University of Arizona, just graduated in December.
LAUREN GILGER: Congratulations.
MADDIE FRENCH: Thank you. Thank you.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so talk about combining these two loves, this kind of lifelong love of bugs and, you know, the fact that you are an artist.
MADDIE FRENCH: I think like I started really combining them in college. Like one of my very first drawing classes, which I was at Phoenix College, I did this still life of a beetle and it was just like so fascinating and interesting to me. And I feel like ever since that one project, I’ve just been drawing bugs for everything.
LAUREN GILGER: What do you love about them? Most people kind of don’t like bugs, right?
MADDIE FRENCH: I feel like that’s kind of what I like about them. It’s kind of fun that they’re like an underdog, sort of to speak, you know?
LAUREN GILGER: You like them because no one likes them?
MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, exactly.
LAUREN GILGER: What’s your favorite bug?
MADDIE FRENCH: I mean, I have a lot of favorite bugs. I always draw myself as a praying mantis, so got to rep the praying mantis. My favorite type of mantis specifically is the iridescent bark mantis.
They’re like sparkly and rainbow praying mantises. Like you got to love that.
LAUREN GILGER: One hundred percent. That’s really cool. Yeah. Your final project even in college was of like bug girls, right?
MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, I did like a blind box line of like these characters that were, yeah, they were bug girls. So we had like, you know, a cute bedbug girl, she was in PJs, there was a fly who was like a pilot, kind of like Amelia Earhart-esque, you know?
So, yeah, I thought it would be fun to kind of combine something, like you said, kind of gross and scary you don’t usually think of with like, "oh, these cute girls," you know, in this weird way.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, I can see that. OK, so talk about the Bugafier, because you’ve kind of turned this into something that you do on the spot as a real job here, right, at markets. Talk about how you came up with this.
MADDIE FRENCH: So, yeah, I had been, you know, vending and selling art on and off. And after graduating, you know, I didn’t really know what I was doing exactly, but I knew that I wanted to try to do some more markets, so I had applied to Scraps Market, which is this really cool event that goes on here in Phoenix that each booth has a sort of interactive element.
And so since I didn’t have something interactive, I was trying to think of like, "OK, what is the most easy way that I could do something that is interactive?" And I’ve seen like those live portrait booths, but I thought maybe I could do people as a bug, kind of similar to the like style that I had drawn those bug girls in for that final project.
And I had honestly had no idea that it would be a success. I thought that people might think it was kind of weird and not really get it, be like, "What? Me as a bug? I don’t understand." But much to my surprise, it seems to be very popular and people seem to like it.
LAUREN GILGER: That first market was like a big hit, right?
MADDIE FRENCH: It was. It was. And it was super surprising to me. I definitely was not expecting it. That first market I just had like a little cardboard, you know, booth that I had made really quickly, kind of a couple nights before, and, yeah, it was a massive success, so it was super exciting to me.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so talk about how you do this.
You’re going to draw me. OK, let me — so let me see how you do this. You draw this on the spot. You meet someone and you look at them and then you decide what kind of bug they might be. How do you decide?
MADDIE FRENCH: It’s hard to say, it’s really about a vibe. I mean, obviously like their outfit, the, you know, the way that they hold themselves, like this all has to do with how I decide what bug I choose to draw them as.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so what am I going to be?
MADDIE FRENCH: Let’s see here. I’m thinking maybe — OK.
LAUREN GILGER: OK.
MADDIE FRENCH: I’ll draw your headphones.
LAUREN GILGER: Any bugs that have a mic? What is it?
MADDIE FRENCH: OK, I drew you as a green lacewing.
LAUREN GILGER: Ah, it’s so cool! I have headphones and mic, and I’m wearing a blazer like I am right now.
MADDIE FRENCH: Yep. And some wings, yep.
LAUREN GILGER: So appropriate. Amazing. Thank you so much.
MADDIE FRENCH: Of course.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so how do you do this? Like when you look at someone, you’re looking at vibe, like you said, to try to figure out what kind of bug they might be. But like how do you get someone’s likeness down pretty quickly and in front of them? Like this is not low pressure.
MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, totally. I mean, that’s part of the reason why I think I like doing the bug portraits as opposed to like a more accurate caricature, because, you know, I am drawing their face as a bug face. I don’t need to worry so much about like, is their nose the right shape? And, you know, bugs don’t have noses, they don’t really have the same mouths as us. There’s a lot of less pressure.
I mean, the main things that I am trying to get down is hair and outfit and sort of like general demeanor. And I think that that goes a long way in creating a likeness of someone rather than having to get any specific details down.
LAUREN GILGER: Green lacewings obviously probably ask a lot of questions. You said you draw yourself as a mantis. Why?
MADDIE FRENCH: I do, yeah. I don’t know, I just I really like mantises. They’re my favorite. It just like made the most sense.
LAUREN GILGER: I want to talk about another project you came out with recently where you did a drawing of arthropods, right, for Trans Pride, and it was sort of a — is it you call it a riso print?
MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, yeah, it’s like a specific type of printing process. It’s the best way I can describe it is that it’s similar to like traditional screen print, but it is through a printer, so you’re doing like one layer at a time. And it’s super fun because the colors that you get with riso are just so vibrant, like you’re not going to get those with a regular printer.
So, yeah, I did like this design recently in pink and blue and white for Trans Pride. So it’s different arthropods that have a unique sort of reproductive system just, you know, to showcase that biology is weird and it’s not always just as black and white as male and female. There’s a kind of all sorts of weird things that happen in the world, so humans can be weird, too.
LAUREN GILGER: So I wonder, as you it sounds like can expand this idea of art and loving bugs all into one thing, and in lots of new and cool ways, how far do you think you can take this? Do you want this to be your thing forever?
MADDIE FRENCH: Hopefully, yeah. I mean, that’s the goal definitely to just, you know, continue bugging.
LAUREN GILGER: Lots to come for The Bug Girl. Maddie French, thank you so much for coming in. I really appreciate it. Thank you for drawing me. This is so cool.
MADDIE FRENCH: Thank you, yeah, of course. Anytime.
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