We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Conor Toland a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Conor, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I’ve been working with kids in part due to the stalling of the animation industry right now. One of the things I get asked a lot as I draw at work are “how do you draw like that?” I always say “practice, and lots of it” as most creatives know. It’s really interesting to see younger kids draw as well, because they all enjoy drawing. They’re all bad at it, because they’re kids and they don’t know how to draw. But they really enjoy it nonetheless. They haven’t been told that art is too hard, or that they just can’t draw, or anything like that. Kids will never tell you they can only draw a stick figure. I think ultimately I was very lucky with my family, especially my mom, who was very nurturing of my creative impulses. Like a lot of artists, I’ve been drawing since I was a little kid and never really stopped. Only in later high school did I really start to think about art seriously, though.
I think what really helped me was having good high school art teachers that taught me about the Elements & Principles of Art and Design. I remember at the time I thought the idea of “rules” for art was ridiculous, but you really can’t understate how helpful knowing about that stuff is. Just having a vocabulary to evaluate a composition is extraordinarily helpful, even if there is not objective right way to make a piece.
As for obstacles, I think I struggle certainly with inadequacy. I have a lot of artists I admire, some I personally know, and I certainly find myself making comparisons to them. It’s frustrating to want to be better at something than you are, even if you’re not bad. So I usually just try to remind myself it’s practice, and try to find smarter ways to practice.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a degree in Animation in 2023, and have been looking for work at any part of the animation industry since. I love all parts of production though my focus in the past year has mostly been on design elements such as concept art and Background Design. I’ve long had a passion for animation, storytelling, and visual arts, and that’s really what still motivates me – I want to tell stories and engage with people, to move people in one way or another. I’ve been drawing from a very young age and I have a very analytic mind for the things I enjoy; I’m always trying to figure out how stories, animation, shows, and movies tick. How do they get made? I love learning how these crazy ideas happen so I can follow in their footsteps.
My main focus in storytelling draws inspiration from the likes of Miyazaki, Cartoon Saloon, classic Disney films, Peanuts cartoons, and films like Lady Bird and Edge of Seventeen. The one thing that’s important to me in all my work, regardless of tone or style, is sincerity. I want to be honest and sincere in everything I do, not only because I think that’s what audiences want, but because I don’t see any point in doing anything else.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

In addition to my love of art, I’m also really passionate about policy. I think it’s a shame that policy doesn’t promote the arts or animation or film or the like much in the United States. I understand there’s tax cuts and grants here and there, but at MassArt we watched a lot of unique and strange short films that had the CBC logo on them because they really nurture the arts there (at least compared to here). I remember in middle school learning about New Deal era programs like the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Art Project which basically had the government paying unemployed people to make murals, statues, posters, and other incredible works of art in addition to the more modernly accepted infrastructure projects. Stuff from that time is honestly really beautiful still, and the idea that the government and society at large found it worth investing in during one of the worst times in American history is really inspiring. I wish we had more programs like that today, and I wish it extended into film. There needs to be a freedom of expression not just in saying what you want, but in being able to create art that says something, not just to make money.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

In my Junior year of Animation, we had to complete short films during one semester. They were very short, around one minute long. I had been working on it in somewhat of a vacuum for the whole semester. Granted, getting critique here and there, but almost always on an individual basis. When we had the big screening at the end of the semester, the crowd reacted to parts of my film. It was really inspiring and felt really good to have that. Something I made was causing emotional reactions in the audience, enough to cause audible reactions. I generally try not to target my work towards pleasing an audience, because as I’ve mentioned my main goal is sincerity. But it definitely made me think about the goal – to either say something, or make some one feel something. I think the worst kind of project is one you have no reaction to. I actually love trainwreck-bad movies. And they’re the best when you can tell the creator of the work is being truly authentic. It’s honest. It makes you react, often viscerally. I think really bad movies have a lot more in common with great ones than mediocre ones. And even when I’m trying to make something good, I’m still aiming for that goal – to say something, express something, cause some kind of feeling. That’s really the value of art is being able to say something that’s hard to say or summarize.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://conortoland.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conortoe/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conor-toland/
• Twitter: https://x.com/conortoe
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIDCEq7CWtnHbZ2YxtpoY7A