This year, Communikey is pleased to host a portion of our CMKY 2014 Festival programming at madelife. A truly inspiring organization, we took time out to chat with the madelife team about who they are, what they’re doing and where they’re going.

Communikey: Firstly – walk us through your team. Who are we talking to? Who is madelife?

madelife: Our founders are Mae Martin and Daniel Conroy. Leah Brenner is our curator and gallery director. Angelo Keely is our creative director. Frankie Graham is our music coordinator. Cain Czopek is our creative coordinator. We also have a bunch of professional creatives who work as mentors with us and a team of amazing interns.

CMKY: Madelife is a relatively new addition to the Boulder community, having only started up a couple of years ago. Why did you begin this project?

ml: We really wanted to create a launch pad for creative community in Boulder; a place where creative people could come to develop and manifest their dreams and goals. So really, the whole concept evolved around mentoring and connecting people. We also saw a need for a more urban, edgy and eclectic artist representation in Boulder that went beyond landscapes and bronze sculptures.

CMKY: You seem to dabble in a ton of different areas, from live music performances to art workshops and even retail sales. Can you break down what madelife does in a nutshell?

ml: In a nutshell, we want to launch and represent artists that we believe in. We do that with a highly curated store representing mostly small and local designers, two gallery spaces with monthly rotating art exhibits, a black box performance space that hosts live music and other performance acts, recording and producing content with artists in our video and music studio, and our flagship apprenticeship program that helps people achieve their creative and entrepreneurial goals.

CMKY: Do you see this model as something that could be scaled to other cities, acting as a hub for creative education and youth engagement in markets outside of Boulder?

ml: Absolutely. When we launched we were already thinking big and that we would be creating similar spaces all over the country.

CMKY: You’ve grown so much in the short time you’ve been up and running. What’s next for madelife?

ml: We want to do more collaborating with national and international artists and really grow our apprenticeship program.

CMKY: One last thing – are there any CMKY 2014 performance you’re especially looking forward to?

ml: Wow, so many great things happening with CMKY 2014 it’s hard to choose! The Whether Weather Installation sounds super interesting, and I’m excited to check that out as well as the DJ Boutiques and the workshops with Dubspot!