We were lucky to catch up with Bret Johnson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Bret , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

Being a full time tattoo artist is amazing , but we still have along way to go when it come to exclusivity , stereotypes and being taken seriously as professional artists .

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 started tattooing in 2010, I’ve always been drawn to art , went to every art class i could take as a kid , i went to collage for art and had the goal to be a tattoo artist from the age of 14 . My great grandfather had a tattoo from ww2 and i thought it was the the coolest thing I’ve ever seen and ever since then all i could think about was tattooing . Getting into tattooing isn’t easy but i wasn’t going to take no for an answer , so i networked and made connections for a few yrs and it eventually got me into a tattoo shop to start my career . I learned quickly that tattooing has a lot of old toxic tendencies from older artists , so i swore i was going to do everything i could to show people tattooing is all about good artwork, good customer service , and creating a fun/safe space for people to come and enjoy . I had a lot of old tattoo artists tell me I’d never be successful doing things the way i did , but i quickly grew a wonderful following by treating people with respect, not wasting their time , and trying to produce the best work i could .. I’m proud of taking a new approach to tattooing and customer service and am very happy 13 yrs later still thriving with wonderful clients and gaining more everyday .

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I got hired by a shop that i felt at the time was going to really help me grow , the more i hung out around the owner i Quickly realize i made a huge mistake , this persons take on life was extremely toxic and was trying to mold me into someone i didn’t want to be , so i had to stand up for myself and morals and back out of working for them , some shop owners can be extremely aggressive and toxic when you try to back out so it was a pretty heavy situation with a lot of gaslighting , but i knew i had to get far away from them, i got away and never looked back , thank god i did because that owner burnt his reputation and multiple shops straight to the ground .

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Tattooing was really hard to get into, i had a ton of artists tell me I’d never make it , i had a old high school schoolmate who was a tattoo artist pretend to help me but he really was trying to keep me out of tattooing because he knew I’d be competition , i had a lot of people try and keep me out of tattooing in fear of competition , but what they didn’t realize is we should build each other and support each other , there’s plenty of business for everyone, and we should help eveyone rise up , not put them down .

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @bretjohnsontattoos

Image Credits
Shout out to @inickeon for the photo of me tattooing .