National Velvet
April - December 2025
Can we build a cake structure out of pipe cleaners, frosting out of caulk or fabric, sprinkles out of sequins?? What cake from your past do you have the strongest memory of? Do you want to try recreating it with spackle and spray foam?
Elevating the 150th Anniversary of Madison Public Library throughout 2025, artist-in-residence, National Velvet (they/them) will help us celebrate -- with CAKE AS ART!
National Velvet will be setting up shop and converting the Bubbler Room into a “Fake Bakery” for the community to explore making CAKE AS ART! While none of National Velvet’s cakes are actually edible, their “baking” process calls for material problem-solving, imagination and innovation. This deliciously creative space will cater to all ages with intentional workshops geared towards certain age(s) and groups throughout the year.
In their art practice, National Velvet sees cakes as vessels for storytelling. Cakes often hold a memory, a moment in time, a relationship, and as an artist they are fascinated by how objects can carry meaning beyond their form. National Velvet will invite others into this world—a world where art is playful and experimental, where the line between what is real and imagined gets deliciously blurry. In this year of celebration National Velvet will engage the community through programs, hands-on workshops and outreach prompts that will collect responses from the community, working towards a collective, community art piece unveiled in December 2025.
Who is National Velvet?
National Velvet (they/them) is an artist who shapes worlds and stories through comics, zines, cakes, and a little bit of magic. By day, National Velvet is a fairy-scientist-shapeshifter; by night, they draw comics and bring visions to life with unexpected materials. They create work rooted in their own experiences as a queer, trans, neurodivergent artist, often at the intersection of joy and grief, searching for the moments where they meet and transform, where vulnerability and play can coexist.
National Velvet earned their MFA from UW-Madison and is currently residing as an artist in Madison, WI. In addition to their own practice, National Velvet works as an Artist Mentor at Artworking, an organization that supports professional artists and entrepreneurs with disabilities in meaningful careers.
Bubbler Artist-in-Residence, National Velvet, has created two non-edible cakes that will travel around to outreach events across the city of Madison in 2025.
These cakes will be used to collect responses from our community members helping us celebrate this momentous occasion!
Workshops
Alicia Ashman Library’s 25th Anniversary Party: This Celebration Calls for CAKE!!
Alicia Ashman Library’s 25th Anniversary
Saturday, October 11 from 10:00am - 12:00pm
Alicia Ashman Library
National Velvet is hitting the road with the Fake Cake Bakery — bringing frosting, flair, and fun to the 25th Anniversary Celebration of Alicia Ashman Library!
Catch them elbows-deep in “frosting” as part of the festivities, and join in on the imaginative chaos! Visitors of all ages are invited to create their own wild, whimsical, and totally inedible cake to commemorate this special occasion. (Don’t worry — there’ll be real cake to eat, too!)
Think you can build a cake out of pipe cleaners? Frost it with caulk? Add velvet, sequins, and whatever else you dream up? Come get crafty and help celebrate the magic, joy, and unique community spirit of Alicia Ashman Library — one fake cake at a time!
Fall Workshop Dates Coming Soon!
Location:
This Central Library Artist Residency is supported by Madison Public Library Foundation and Dane Arts.