Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John Lawler. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

John , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I think somehow I always wanted to be a creative professional or at least once I knew it was a career path that you can have. As a kid I was always drawing and just really deep into my imagination daydreaming and building worlds with lego and action figures. Once I was in high school and you get a bit more freedom in choosing classes I took every art class that was available to me and had some really great teachers. One of my art teachers, Mr. Griffith saw some talent in me and asked what I was thinking about as a career and college. At the time I wasn’t really sure so I kind of half jokingly said I’d like to be the guy creating concert posters and album art. Now I say half jokingly because up until this point no one else had taken me seriously when I said that, but Mr. Griffith was like oh so you want to go into illustration or graphic design. Up until this time I just assumed that someone was creating the album art, posters and merch like as a side hustle. Now I finally had some idea as to what I wanted to be when I grew up and unfortunately I got really sick, basically waking up one morning and my legs just wouldn’t go. I would spend the second half of freshman year, about half of Sophmore and Junior years in and out of the hospital or at home. Finally diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis at the age of 16 and having my hips replaced and relearning to walk after my leg muscles had atrophied I was able to get back for my Senior year. Now in that time that I was out Mr. Griffith had made sure to keep sending me art assignments, like my other classes. My senior year was a bit different because I had taken art all 4 years, apparently no one really did that, but I was basically able to say hey since this is what I plan on doing and I want to make sure i can get into art/design school we worked on making my portfolio the strongest it could be.

So that’s kind of how I got to this point as a creative professional and why I think arts education is so important.

John , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi, I’m John Lawler, I’m the owner and creative behind Lawler Creative Company. I opened the studio in 2022 but probably like most of you creativity is in my blood and I’ve been making art since childhood. I studied art and design at Delaware College of Art & Design majoring in graphic design. After school I worked for a small group of news papers and then a publishing company until the pandemic in 2020. Like a lot of people I was let go during the pandemic, luckily I have a super supportive wife (fiance at the time) who told me thats the time to get out on my own. So I took some time to do online workshops and really understand what would be going into starting a business of my own. Over this time I really thought I would be doing design for clients and while I do take on some clients I really found that I wanted to design and illustrate my own work. So it started with a tee shirt design during our quarantine time to commemorate those first few weeks when we were all watching Tiger King. As the past few years have passed I’ve been putting out prints, stickers, tees, pins, basically I went back to my punk & indie rock days and the DIY scene designing merch for the brand and causes I hold near to my heart. Some of the causes we’ve been able to support are cancer research, suicide prevention, and the fight against racism.

One thing that is a total challenge in both life and my journey as a creative is that I suffer from Ankylosing Spondylitis a chronic illness that has affected my spine and a number of joints throughout my body. It’s caused me at times to not be able to hold a pencil or paintbrush due to spasms which is one reason I really enjoy working digitally though I try to always have some form of a rough sketch still. The pain from this disease gave me my mantra “take pain, make good” I decided a long time ago if I was going to always be in pain I might as well use it as fuel to make good things happen. This inspired one of my most popular designs that we have as both a sticker and print. Apparently it’s something a lot of people can relate to and I know of at least one person who got it as a tattoo.

Aside from the studio you can find me hanging out with my wife Jen, who is probably my biggest supporter and fan. You can find her by my side helping out with our booth at festivals and markets, she’ll probably tell you she’s the management which honestly she kind of is. On market days she’s the first to offer help with booth setup and just making sure I take time to care for myself.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I guess being a creative with a chronic illness makes you resilient wether you really want to be or not. One thing I’ve had to learn is how to work around it. Having days where you can hardly move to get out of bed let alone go into the studio and hold a pencil/click a mouse, you learn patience, or at least struggle with it. Then there are the days I am working and a spasm hits my hand and a 3 hour drawing gets ruined or worse yet I’m carving a block print and slice open my hand. So moving to a more digital work flow has helped, if I have a spasm that screws up a vector line in illustrator or a brush stroke in photoshop I can simply undo it. Now this doesn’t mean that I have given up block printing illustrations or painting it just means that those pieces sometimes mean just a bit more to me.
Another aspect of my illness is just needing time away and taking time to heal. this is something I doubt I could do without the support of my wife so I consider myself super lucky. So last year in January I found out I needed to have both my knees replaced, I got super depressed and just couldnt bring myself to create for a bit luckily between therapy and friends I was able to get my head right again and get back to working, Once surgery time rolled around in August for the right and October for the left knee I had planned to take a break from everything for a bit, no clients, no personal work, I kept the online shop open but had put out on our social media that delivery times would be really slow unlike normal. I got so much support from my fellow creatives and followers on social media letting me know I just needed to concentrate on getting well again and they would be ready when I was ready to get back to my creative practice. After a six month break that I primarily just worked at rebuilding my strength and getting back to walking I’m glad to say as of February 2025 I’m fully back in my creative practice.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I don’t know if its the goal or mission but my mantra has always been “take pain make good” I guess I aim to always spread positivity. I don’t shy away from discussing my disabilities and struggles in my work, I don’t really believe that art is going to save the world or some cliche crap of that nature but I think it can help people. I know it’s helped me. So if my work can help make someone feel a bit better or smile on their shittiest day then I think that’s probably the best outcome.
I will say my work has probably always had a slight lean into my liberal beliefs but in the past few months become very political. I’m sure it would be easier to say nothing but it’s really our duty as humans to speak up and I’m going to use my work as my voice at times, if this costs me followers or sales that’s okay too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lawlercreative.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawler_creative
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LawlerCreative