Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jackie Rabbit. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jackie , thanks for joining us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

I wish that I had not waited so long to pursue my creative interests outside of tattooing. Most people have been told at some point during childhood that creative careers don’t pay. We get told that writing or playing music isn’t a “job” and that art isn’t worth anything til after you die. With those words of wisdom in mind but with a determination to do SOMETHING artistic as a career, I chose tattooing as my path. Especially when you are just starting out it’s actually not as creative of a profession as you might think. For me it was 12-16 hr days of lettering tattoos and designs picked from the wall. The designing that you do in a street shop is much more like commercial art or logo design than what most would consider actual “art”. This was also back when tribal designs and Bettie Boop were the thing to get. I worked and hustled for a long time without giving myself time or space for doing art for fun. Eventually social media made it a lot easier to find clients and for them to find me. I was able to advertise to a more discerning audience and started getting offered larger and more creative pieces. This meant more money and more free time. As my career and tattoo culture its self progressed, there was a greater push for us to be more well rounded artists and produce more traditional art. That, coupled with the need to constantly produce visual content, made creating art for fun a part of my job.
Then I met my partner. He is a professor of animation and design, author and amazing artist. With his encouragement and guidance I was able to hone my ideas a skills and really fulfill my potential as an artist. I was even able to pay our bills entirely through my paintings during the pandemic when I could not tattoo due to the lockdown in California.
Since then I’ve tried to maintain my focus on creating and expressing. I now have five published books and we have a studio/gallery of our own.
I wish that I had believed in that part of myself sooner in life and taken more risks in creating. That being said, I’m very happy with where my career is now. All things come in their season and my journey shaped who I am now and I’m super good with that.

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 am a painter, illustrator, writer, tattoo artist and all ‘round creative goblin. I grew up in the SanFrancisco Bay Area and started working in tattoo studios as a teenager. My partner and I moved to the St Louis area last year. We opened Eldritch Brothers Tattoo & Gallery on Cherokee’s Antique Row back in May. That is where you can find my paintings, prints and books. Currently I have five titles: Monsters Among Us, Pride and Pterodactyls, the Depression Coloring Book, A Is For Ants In Your Eyes, and my latest book is a collection of short horror stories called A Subtle Rot. All my titles can also be found on my website as well as Barns and Noble.com

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

Moving across the country and coming to a new area is a scary thing no matter what. Though I’ve done it a couple other times, this was the first time I’ve done it without a studio to land at. Usually when a tattoo artist relocates and works at a new studio, the studio helps them with building clientele and makes sure the artist has enough work. Since I came to Missouri with the intention of focusing mainly on painting and writing I did not have a studio position lined up. Once we got settled in though and I decided it was time to start taking clients it was a pleasant surprise to see there was a ready market. Thanks to a strong social media presence I have been able to attract clients from all over the country to visit our studio here in St Louis. We were also surprised to find that there were people here in the Midwest that had been following my work for sometime and were now very excited that I had ended up coming to them instead of the other way around.
Something that I think has helped a lot is that one of the things I’m known best for is my trees and nature imagery. With the huge outdoors enthusiast culture around here I seem to have found my niche.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Unfortunately my life has not been a particularly kind one. I grew up pretty rough and was on my own at 16. As an adult I survived domestic violence and assault that left me with a traumatic brain injury. I got through it though and started to heal. I moved to the mountains in Northern California in 2014 and life actually started to chill out and be good. In 2018 the town of Paradise, my house and the studio I worked at burned down in a wildfire. There’s a few documentaries about it. My dog and I got trapped in my car trying to escape. We had to escape on foot through the fire. It has been a very difficult recovery from that day. Therapy and a good support system has helped a lot. My dog is doing very well, though we are both still very jumpy with explosions or smoke. If there’s one thing that my life has taught me it’s that there is always going to be a tomorrow. There will always be work to be done and things to create. We can pull inspiration from dark times. We can learn about ourselves and focus on the things that really matter.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jackierabbittattoo.com
• Instagram: @jackie_rabbit
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JackieRabbitTattoo?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Other: www.eldritchbrothers.com