MADDY CLIFFORD
“Artists, You Are Not a Loan” is a project that uses poetry and social media to show how student debt shapes the lives of artists — often making it harder to pursue creative careers, especially here in the San Francisco Bay Area and across California.
About the Artists
I am an Oakland-rooted writer, artist, and organizer. I served for eight years as Poet-in-Residence at the San Francisco Juvenile Detention Center. Following that work, I released a solo album, downCHANTS, and composed a forty-minute score for the aerial dance piece Apparatus of Repair with Flyaway Productions. In 2023, I released the videocast What’s Pimpin’?, produced with KQED Arts. My work is grounded in Black feminist praxis and uses bold, playful approaches to highlight shared struggles. I also work as a Creative Media Strategist with the Debt Collective, where I help lead narrative campaigns that have pushed debt abolition from the political margins into the mainstream. Our work has helped pressure the Biden administration to cancel more than $187 billion in student debt. My writing has appeared in Prism Reports, Truthout, and Teen Vogue, and I’ve been featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and More Perfect Union.
Website | TikTok: @madlines | IG: @mad.lines
“Artists, You Are Not a Loan” is a project that uses poetry and social media to show how student debt shapes the lives of artists — often making it harder to pursue creative careers, especially here in the San Francisco Bay Area and across California. California residents carry more student debt than people in any other state. While federal student debt cancellation is facing big political roadblocks, there are still important opportunities to apply pressure at the state level. For example, the California Attorney General’s office has influence that can help push for broader federal student debt relief. At the same time, the Bay Area arts ecosystem is going through major changes. The recent closure of California College of the Arts has raised serious questions about whether it’s still possible to sustain an artistic career in this region. “Artists, You Are Not a Loan” centers the voice and experience of an artist (myself) who is living with student debt.