We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jesse Jarldane. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jesse below.

Jesse, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

In April, 2023 I started boxing as a way to improve my physical and mental health.

In March of 2024 I started a 3 month training camp for a charity boxing exhibition called Unite to Fight, where athletes who have never stepped foot in a boxing ring or have very little boxing experience train and fight, while raising money for a charity of their choosing.

I chose the Wild Animal Sanctuary as the non-profit I’m fighting for. They are based in Colorado, where I live, and save large carnivores like bears, lions, tigers, and a wide range of wild “exotic” animals from captivity. Many of them have had terrible lives or really poor living conditions before being rescued. The Wild Animal Sanctuary provides open space and as much freedom as they can to these animals.

Beyond getting hit in the face, a bigger challenge I came to realize for this boxing and fundraising project has been actually raising money. This is the first large fundraiser initiative I’ve ever done, and finding ways to get people into donating to a cause was a learning curve. At first I hosted a raffle to win a series of paintings that celebrate the different big cats the sanctuary rescues. This didn’t really catch on in the way I had hoped, and so I offered to sketch cats for a $1 donation.

I was totally panicked after posting my offer that I would have to draw 70,000 cats which is how many followers I have on Instagram. All of them cat people.

In my head, I was preparing to get thousands of $1 donations, and just overwhelm myself with cat sketches. I’m not sure why I really offered, and those I mentioned the idea too were opposed because of the workload and tradeoff. I don’t get any of the money, and am putting a ton of time into these sketches.

After sharing the offer, I was blown away. The response was so much more incredible than I could have imagined. I think by setting a low donation amount for a personalized, hand drawn sketch of their cat, combined with raising money for a good cause really touched people.

In a month and a half we’ve raised $5,126 out of the goal of $5,000, and I’ve drawn almost 80 cats, with about 100 in the queue. Another thing I learned is that most people who have donated have 3 plus cats!

The most impactful part of this has been the ones who’ve donated who are getting a sketch of their cat who’s past away. Some have even been searching for a long time to find the right person to create a portrait for them of their cat who’s passed, and found my fundraiser.

It’s been so moving to hear people’s stories, how much they care about their cats, and what this means to them. I’ve really been taken back by how people have cared about the fundraiser.

Before this I was really hesitant to offer commissions, and seeing the response of everyone when they get their sketches back has been incredible.

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

My name is Jesse and I’m a multidisciplinary artist based out of Boulder, Colorado. I graduated from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in 2024 with a BFA in illustration.

Halfway through college I adopted my cat Aiko, and became incredibly obsessed with cats. I started drawing them all the time and bagan sharing my cat art on social media, only to find out that the internet really loves cats.

Currently all my art is cat themed. I make and sell different products like art prints, stickers, greeting cards, and lately I’ve been learning screen printing and getting into making apparel – cat themed of course.

I really love making art that celebrates the joy cat lovers have for their cat’s. I enjoy capturing funny and quirky things cat’s do like 3am zoomies.

The most recent series I’ve released is called “Self Care Cats” which feature cats being themselves and having shameless self care. Each design is a reminder to me to practice different self care things like having healthy boundaries, or practice being in the present moment more.

I have a wide range of mediums I cycle through from acrylic paint, digital, ink drawing to relief cut and block printing. Since I feel passionate about all these different mediums, it’s really helped me to have a consistent subject. I created a rule for myself that I can use any medium I’m moved to use, as long as I include a cat.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Business is all about being open, pivoting, and consistently looking at the operation and whether the direction is on track with the goal or not.

I realized that the ability to pivot is something that I had to learn. When I first started my business, I had an idea of what it was supposed to be – from a pretty limited perspective, and thought that the best thing I could do was to hold onto that idea and see it to fruition at all costs.

The first product I ever made for my cat art business were stickers. I had seen all these incredibly successful sticker shops on Etsy and had so much hope that I could be one of them. I realized pretty quickly that it was not as easy as making a sticker or a series of stickers and listing them for sale.

Part of me was really stubborn to see that idea through, to only make stickers. But after really thinking about my business, thinking about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go, I changed.

I kept, and still make stickers, but as a much smaller product. I think back then I started printing mini prints as an alternative which started getting traction.

The ability to recognize when an idea isn’t working and pivoting – trying something new, or just having another plan is really helpful. I’ve found that running an art business is like a series of paths and choosing specific paths that create different outcomes. If one path I choose to take the business leads to a dead end, pivoting to a different path, accepting failure, and marching along has been very valuable.

How did you build your audience on social media?

My social media journey has been pretty crazy. I started posting my art in 2019 and was really inconsistent and didn’t see much growth from it. In August of 2023 a reel I posted on Instagram went super viral. That one video single handedly brought me 72,000 followers virtually overnight. It quite literally changed my life, my business and how I view social media.

Before I went viral though, I implemented a number of different strategies that I think contributed to actually going viral.

The first – I challenged myself to post every day. At the time I made a decision to make very low effort video content and post it every day, almost viewing reels as a lottery system. Basically if I post consistently, one will eventually perform well. And one did, and it was totally unexpected. I was actually boarding a plane and I made a reel with a trending audio using an old clip from a year previous.

The second was I was using and really paying attention to reels trends, and I caught a trend right at the sweet spot which I think was the main reason I went viral.

The third was being specific about what I was posting – just my cat art, I was able to reach a really find my audience that loves cats and art.

My advice for anyone looking to build their social media audience as a way to grow their business, or share their art:

1. Expect success – prepare to go viral. Make sure your website is ready, if you’re selling art, make sure your packing and shipping setup is ready, find a printer to handle your prints. I also think that by looking for success instead of failure, it lends to achieving it more.

2. Post consistently. Take some time to figure out a good schedule that works for you. Do you like to batch schedule posts? Batch make video content? Or do you like to post daily or regularly like me? Find a schedule that works for you and commit to it.

3. Get used to and develop confidence with sharing your art and showing your face. You don’t really have to use your voice if you don’t want to, but more and more people are gravitating towards the artist and the personality over the brand. With art it’s a little different since your art can take you very far, but putting a face to the art is valuable. So is practicing being in front of the camera.

4. You can post old content. I cycle and post throwbacks. Its totally ok.

5. BE YOU. Just be yourself. Your beautiful, quirky and unique self. <3

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Jessejarldane.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessejarldaneart/

Image Credits

All art created by Jesse Jarldane Copyright 2024.