We recently connected with Brigette Box and have shared our conversation below.
Brigette, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I have always been a creative person and have been drawing since I could hold a marker. Art was the only thing that ever really interested me enough to pursue learning as much as possible, whether it was painting on canvas or sewing! Ever since I was young, I was fascinated by tattooing, and was always drawn to them on other people. The first time I ever went to a tattoo shop was around age 12, when my uncle was getting a memorial piece for my dad, who lost his life as a first responder on September 11th. If I remember correctly, it was at Top Hat Tattoo. A bunch of our family was there, and I was really intrigued by the whole process, between seeing the drawing and watching the actual tattooing process. I remember just feeling so thrilled to be in that environment with the tattoo flash all over the walls. I really felt like tattooing was the coolest thing anyone could ever do, and I still do! After leaving that day I knew that it was a skill that I wanted to learn and I spent as much time as I could flipping through tattoo magazines and figuring out how I could break into the industry. I consider myself lucky every day to have been able to turn my dream, conceived at such a young age and spurred on by so many personal obstacles, into a reality.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m 25 years old, and have lived in New York my whole life. I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember, and making things has always felt like second nature. I have been tattooing for just over 6 years, and started my apprenticeship immediately after finishing my schooling early in order to pursue tattooing full time. I don’t often get into it but I think it’s important since tattooing played a large role in how I handled my grieving process, but I lost my mom when I was 17 years old very suddenly. At the time my now best friend Brittany (owner of The Calling Bell in Huntington, NY) was early in her tattoo career. Knowing what I was going through and how much I wanted to get into tattooing, she spoke to her boss and he let me come hang around Wyld Chyld Tattoo. I would come by everyday after school and on the weekends to draw, or help out with whatever I could before starting my apprenticeship full time at 18. Getting this opportunity when I did gave me a reason to apply myself at a really difficult time in my life and I can honestly say tattooing saved me. I’m really grateful for the opportunity and community I had at Wyld Chyld and I owe a lot of my confidence and backbone to the time I spent there. It definitely helped keep me out of trouble during a really rough period of my life and provided me with the space to grow, both artistically and personally, from my hardships.
In addition to tattooing, I’m also a painter and have been spending more time as of late working on building up my skills there. Having not had formal higher education in that field, I do consider myself self taught in the arts. I almost always have prints and other forms of physical art for sale in conjunction with my work in tattooing.
I put a lot of myself into my work and I constantly strive to provide the best version of myself and my art to my clients. Before anything else, I want to make sure I’m providing a clean and comfortable experience for the people I work with. Since tattooing is such an intimate service, and something I spend almost all of my time doing, I strive to ensure that both my client and I have the most fulfilling and positive possible experience.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I find that the most rewarding part of being a creative is the simple joy and fulfillment I get from doing something I love so much every day. I truly feel so lucky to be able to connect with other people in such a special way. Providing a service that helps affirm someone’s identity or aids in their self-expression is something I feel so honored and privileged to do. . In a world where so many people do jobs they hate, or do work they feel isn’t meaningful, I just can’t help but be grateful that my life has continually provided opportunities to do something that I love and that I have been in a position to seize them.
I think tattooing especially is something that requires a lot of hard work, and the work truly never stops. I go home from tattooing all day to draw for my next appointment, then do it all over again the next day. But it’s incredibly rewarding work that allows me to have a lot of freedom in my life as well. I just feel really grateful for the opportunity to do it and for the community of clients and colleagues who have allowed this to be my life.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
One of my biggest goals is to be able to contribute to tattooing in a meaningful way and have the ability to travel and see as much of the world as I can. Traveling as a tattoo artist was one of the more enticing things to me when I chose this vocation, , and is what I’m looking to explore most right now. I recently started to travel, doing guest spots full time, and it’s been really exciting. I’m grateful that there’s been such a positive response within my community to my doing that right now!
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Image Credits
Julian Bracero