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

Jasper, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

For me personally, I feel I started my career at a good time. Had I started sooner I don’t think I would have had as much as an appreciation for the craft as I do now. On top of that, I am able to put my heart and soul into my work now. Being that I am into my late twenties, the timing couldn’t have been better financially.

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

I always wanted to tattoo, but I didn’t feel like I was a good enough artist and took the safer route by getting into animation. I graduated from FullSail with a Bachelors in Computer Animation during the pandemic. Life is kind of funny that way, I graduated during lockdown (hahaha life is a bitch). All the internships that were available for most all of the major companies and most of the smaller ones were gone at that time. I was at a crossroads, and felt unfulfilled with the work I was doing. I had always wanted to tattoo, realized life was short and decided to get to work pursue it tattooing. I spent hours a day improving my art, and when it was time, I spoke with a close friend (Megan Carroll) who is in the industry about taking that step and she helped guide me into the craft. During those early days I worked two full times jobs, spent little time with my family, and devoted most of my time (seven days a week) to becoming a better artist and learning the craft. I was lucky to have a good mentor who is a great artist and has challenged my artistic ability. I have a great shop owner who was willing to accept me into his shop at my age and give me a chance, and of course an amazing wife who kept everything afloat.
I care a lot about discipline and technique, as does my mentor, in that way we work really well together. I try to put a lot of time and effort into learning new techniques, and you can’t do that without discipline. My goal is to master this craft, and right now the art style I resonate with most leans towards heavy blackwork. I love trying to make creepy things beautiful, and beautiful things creepy. At the end of the day I really want to put out the cleanest blackwork in the southeast. While I might not be there yet, that is one of my current goals. I get a lot of help from Birmingham artists like Zach Vaughn and Josh Keyser who in my opinion are the best blackwork artists in Alabama, and without whom I wouldn’t be where I am.
I strive to offer each customer the most professional experience I can provide at this current stage in my career. At the forefront of that, I want the client to have a tattoo they are proud to wear. I think tattoos are cool, they can be sentimental or just a funny expression of ones self. Ultimately I want to do blackwork, so I’m always looking to book any blackwork that is creepy, edgy, or occult-like. Taking the clients idea and twisting it into my style is really fun, I live for it, and at the end of the day I feel that client/artist relationship is how you can get the best out of your tattoo experience.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding is always the smile on someone’s face. Being able to make the clients dream come to life on their body, and have it exceed their expectation is what fuels my fire and bring me joy and fulfillment. The sense of fulfillment when I do a good, clean piece of art is one of the best aspects of this work. It makes me feel proud of the work I’ve put in and that feeling is worth chasing.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Consistancy! Consistency! Consistency! Something that really helped me was identifying what I wanted to sell and getting a good catalog to put on social media. For me most of my apprenticeship I didn’t really post online, which could or could not have been a hindrance, but once I became an artist, having a plethora of media to post every single day definitely took a major load off when getting started. Not only that, but posting daily really helped build my audience. It’s always worth taking the time with your clients, because word of mouth is huge with small business owners.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: JasperWhiteArt
• Facebook: Jasper White Art

Image Credits
JasperWhiteArt LLC.