Artist in Residence
Known as a country of creatives, Aisling O'Toole chats to the people who managed to make a career out of their creativity and are now taking on the global business world
Irish creative brands doing well
Founded in 2015 by husband and wife Julie and Owen Mc Loughlin, Jando is a multi-award winning printmaking studio based in Dublin. The duo skillfully blend a combination of both traditional and modern printmaking disciplines, including screen printing and hand drawn illustration to create their distinctive body of work.
What's the hardest thing about being an artist?
Being overly critical of your work and placing far too much pressure on yourself. But thankfully, I have Julie who supports me and encourages me not to be so hard on myself or my work. When I hit a brick wall creatively she’s always there for me. I know many makers who work alone and find it incredibly difficult to juggle the many hats it requires to run a business.
It takes up so much of your time and energy. We divide our tasks so that we both focus on our strengths instead of areas that neither of us feel comfortable working in. We are very fortunate to be able to spend our time and energy collaborating and working together to create work that we are incredibly proud of.
Where do you find your inspiration?
We enjoy city living and have lived in Dublin for almost 20 years and have felt at home here from day one. It’s impossible not to be influenced by the energy, the people and the architecture of the city. We’re also both massive music and film fans and these influences feature prominently in our work, from the bold punchy colours we use to the cinematic compositions of our pieces. Given Ireland’s rich architectural heritage there’s no shortage of inspiration to draw upon.
Is social media is a help or a hindrance?
It's a bit of both. Social media can be an amazing platform which, if used correctly, can really help you generate interest in your art and can help you find and grow your audience. You can connect with your audience on a collective or on a one to one basis. It’s an amazing feeling to have customers, from all over the world, contact you after finding your work on Instagram or Facebook. We try to keep our social media as honest as possible. We post about our failures, and the things we got wrong as much as we do about our little victories and achievements.
However, the scrolling culture associated with social media, especially Instagram, means that we can consume huge amounts of content rapidly and with relative ease. This can become incredibly addictive if not managed properly. It can lead to reduced productivity where simply going on to take a look “just for a minute” can mean losing hours where you could have been creating instead.
Social media can force you to create unrealistic expectations of yourself and your work. Seeing so many amazing artists can often turn quickly from inspiration into a dangerous comparison game, which can lead to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem where you believe that both you and your work are simply not good enough.
For me, I’m incredibly selfish about my work. I create it for myself. The moment you begin to create art for others, for some kind of external validation or for Instagram likes is the moment your work starts to suffer.
In a nutshell, don’t believe everything you see on Instagram and try not to let yourself get sucked into the mirage. Be more thoughtful about how much time you devote to social media and maybe use a "screen time" app to manage your time more efficiently. Listen to your body and your mind. If something doesn't make you feel good then maybe it’s time to give social media a break for a little while. It will be there when you get back, and chances are you won’t have missed a thing.
Have you always wanted to be an artist?
No, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I studied computer programming in college and worked in IT and finance for almost 20 years, but it wasn’t until we began planning our wedding in NYC and created our own wedding stationery that I realised what I wanted to do.
We couldn’t source wedding stationery that reflected our personalities so we ended up designing and making our own. The centrepiece of our stationery suite was a wedding invitation in the form of a hand stitched 40-page hardback book. Each book was personalised for our guests and included a hollowed out secret compartment containing luggage tags, badges and confetti. On the books dust jacket we added the line “A JANDO Publication” as a little joke between ourselves. We didn’t know it at the time but that’s when JANDO was born. JANDO is an acronym for Julie and Owen.
“We have lived in Dublin for almost 20 years and have felt at home here from day one, it's impossible not to be inf luenced by the energy, the people and architecture of the city”
Shortly after our wedding Julie stumbled upon a series of screen prints that I had been working on in my spare time. She instantly fell in love with them and decided to approach several retailers who wanted to stock the entire collection immediately. Things took off for us there and we haven‘t looked back since.
In a nutshell, I never knew what I was sitting on. It took Julie to look at my work and push it out into the world. If it wasn’t for her, my screen prints would still be sitting in a folder underneath our bed. Looking back I guess the path that led me here seems to make sense now because I come from a family of architects, builders and makers.
I suppose my love for architecture comes from my uncle who unsurprisingly is an architect. He’s only a few years older than me so it was always great fun when he’d come home from college and would show me the latest projects he was working on. That was always very inspiring.
What was the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
To believe in myself and to listen to my gut instinct.
What have you learned about yourself so far?
It’s taken me 20 years to really take on board and listen to the advice above. Better late than never I suppose.
I’ve learned to effectively manage my time. This has been hugely beneficial to me. Managing your time effectively and knowing when to step out of the studio is very important. Sometimes you need to take a break in order to gain a fresh perspective on what you are working on. When you reach an impasse brute force doesn't invite inspiration and can lead to frustration and fatigue. Take a step back and come back at it the next morning. Remember that you can’t do everything today! Be patient and develop your own style at your own pace. Keep learning new techniques and printing methods.
Learn to enjoy every single success no matter how big or how small, they all count, and learn from every experience both good and bad. Stay grounded and never take anything for granted.
Accept that you will fail. It takes the sting out of the failures when they actually do happen.
If could go back and do it all again would you change anything?
I wouldn’t change a single thing. Our business began organically after when we started planning our wedding in NYC. Running our own business was something that was completely alien to both us. We had never done anything like this before. Essentially, we were handed a baton and we ran with it.
Of course we’ve made lots of mistakes along the way but we have learned something about our business and about ourselves from each experience and turned it into something positive. We are also very fortunate to have many amazing mentors and friends who have guided us and helped us out along the way.
What are your future plans?
I had previously spent the last 20 years working in jobs that I’ve hated. Now I’m fortunate to get to spend all day working in a job I love with the person I love and I really couldn't ask for anymore. I'm living in the moment both in terms of my life and my work and thoroughly enjoying it. In terms of our work we have several commercial projects in the works that will be unveiled over the coming months. We’ve just released a new collection of prints which we are incredibly proud of and we have just commenced work on our next collection which will be released later in the year.
What piece of art do you wish you'd created?
Easy! Anything by Andy Warhol. However, my favourite piece has to be Sunset Unique Blue from the Sunset series, where Warhol created 472 unique colour variations using only three screens. We were lucky enough to visit an exhibition of his work in the Whitney Museum, in New York, back in February and it literally blew my mind. I even had Jared Leto alongside me as a viewing companion. We chatted briefly about Warhol and the legacy and impact of his work.