RURAL BUSINESS
Jo Anne Butler and Gearoid Muldowney – aka Superfolk – craft deceptively simple homeware inspired by the wild Irish coast
Lots of brands are inspired by the landscape, but few encompass it in their designs in such a personal way as Superfolk. Its brass candle holders echo the bends in a river where one designermaker likes to fish. Its colour prints capture the sway of seaweed in clear Atlantic waters where another likes to swim. “Nature feels very alive here,” says Jo Anne Butler, who runs Superfolk with her husband Gearoid Muldowney in County Mayo. “We spend as much time as we can outside – walking, foraging and fishing – and want to create pieces that help others feel connected to the landscape, too.”
The couple met at art school in Dublin back in 2005. Jo Anne was studying sculpture; Gearoid craft design and goldsmithing. “Simplicity in making and materials informs all our work,” says Gearoid of their elegant, functional homeware. “We want people to understand how our pieces were made just by looking at them. It enables them to feel a bond with them.” This simplicity is evident in Jo Anne’s linocut prints. Instead of a printing press and other equipment, she relies on a wellworn kitchen spoon to press the paper into the lino blocks. “It’s almost embarrassingly simple,” she laughs. “I did my first print at nine years old and I’m pretty much using the same technique now.”
Her popular seaweed designs are inspired by her passion for swimming and snorkelling in the cold, clear waters of nearby Clew Bay on the west coast of Ireland. “I love that moment of dipping under the flat calm of the surface and seeing the vibrancy of the seaweed swaying underneath,” Jo Anne says. “I wanted to create something that celebrated it.”
Traditionally, linocuts are built up with separate layers of coloured ink, but Jo Anne mixes them directly on the block to create subtle variations of colour through the print. “It produces a feeling of energy, light and movement as though you’re swimming and seeing sunshine filtering through seaweed and the waves gently swishing it about.”
DOWNSIZING THEIR DESIGNS
Superfolk began in 2010 when Gearoid started designing and making furniture. After exhibiting at the Stockholm Furniture Fair, orders to his Dublin-based workshop began to fly in from architects and designers around the world working on new restaurants and cafés. Jo Anne had been studying for a master’s degree in architecture. In 2014, she joined the busine
