We were lucky to catch up with Johan Hurtado Calderon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Johan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

It has been a great and long way full of moments of doubt and moments of happiness, since I decided at a young age to live from one of my passions, but at the same time I never wanted to be anything else but an artist. The biggest challenge was coming from a third world country were being an artist is the worst path you can take to have a succesful life or even just to have a descent life. I had to prove myself and everyone around me that it was possible. And the nicest part is that I feel like im still learning how to do it. After many years traveling and starting from zero in different countries I feel like the world has become my home, and Im the only one that can put limits to what I want, and every year I’m getting more and more surprises from this path I choose to follow.

Johan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am from Bogota, Colombia. Since a young age I always told my mom, when I’ll be an adult I will be an artist, and I prefered always to draw than doing homework. The only artist in my family was my uncle, who started doing tattoos when I was 12 years old. That was saved on my memories. When I was 16 years old I started my first steps on the tattoo world on a shop that was close to my school, and when I was 17 started doing it completely in the same shop. In those times we had to craft our own needles and was pretty tough to do the process with those old chinese tattoo machines, but luckly everything have evolved as my art have done it with the time too. After a couple of years I started traveling, first to Argentina, where it was pretty tough to live from my work, But I was doing it step by step and after that I started learning more the abilities of selling myself in another countries. I traveled all south America, and also come to Europe once in those beginnings time, but wasn’t until I went to the states, specifically LA, that I finally felt secure with my work and started living the way I wanted with my art. After LA I’ve been from one place to another and now Im finally based in Portugal, traveling at the same time every time I can to Copenhagen or Barcelona. I still love traveling but the nicest part of all I’ve lived is that I don’t feel like Im starting from zero anymore, and I don’t feel like a foreigner anywhere even been one everywhere.

Basically my services as a tattoo artist are to try to make art on the skin of my clients, that usually reminds them a person or a moment or a goal, and for me is important to do it not just like a tattoo randomly made, but a piece that will fit them pretty well and give them more self-esteem. For example when I do a big piece, my main idea is that the shape of the design fits the body and the muscles where the tattoo is going to be, usually trying to give a shape to the body that will make the client look better. And for me the best part is the process, where I usually create a confidence with the client to know all the story behind the idea of the tattoo and usually being a long conversation, we create a nice friendship.

What I feel more proud about all this process is that is different for every tattoo artist, and really lonely at the same time, but I am happy with what I have accomplished. To be a tattoo artist you don’t go to a university but at the same time you need to be learning every day, about art, drawing, marketing, how to make a good photo or editing a good video, learning how to brand yourself, and also learning languages on all this process.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

There are many stories, cause all this Journey has been a rollercoaster. But one that really affected me was the last time I went to LA, where I was creating what in my head was success. I was there tattooing and finally feeling confident with my work after 8 years of doing it, and I was feeling like that was my place, also my family live in the states, so was perfect spot just to do my art and can be close from them. After a couple of travels to LA, was in 2018 when I went from Colombia to LA for third time and they didn’t let me go in that day and canceled my visa, not just erasing all the goals I had for that year or that period in my life, but also denying me the possibility to be close to my family. I came back to Colombia the same day and I was there completely alone and feeling in a hole. But I am not a quieter, and my life took a huge change. I moved there in Colombia to another city, where I met new people with new thoughts, I met a Colombian Chaman from the Amazonas and did Ayahuasca with him, and the perception I had from the world started to change, I was not anymore thinking in numbers but thinking in union and in what to do to be a better person and try to take out the best in every person I was having contact with, and is a path I’ve been following since then. Lets say it makes me go deeper in what I call my spirituality and start learning from there what I wanted to do and be as an artist, after that I’ve been trying to connect more with my clients and do every tattoo with more love. I cant say all the time, but many times clients can really heal, while getting a tattoo and just expressing many that is behind that decision, and even if is one of a hundred client that can do it, that makes me love more my profession more.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think all the people should start giving more priority on how to build an artistic brain, not saying the other kind of intelligences are not necessary, but for example in my country art is sometimes very underrated and we see many people just living all their life in offices and not trying to explore what they really are and trying to express all that in any way. For me it should be necessary to make art as important as math, cause also shapes the way you think how to solve a problem. There is a book called “the artist way” which help to whatever person in whatever profession how to connect themselves with their creativity.
Is pretty different a scientist for example, that go to his work and just do his day solving the tasks just by following the process he was taught to do, than one that also during that process have worked with the creativity trained already and think in different ways to solve the same tasks, go out of the line a bit and start just creating new ways and even new processes.
in the same book the writer express that creativity comes from the universe which is what have created all, and we just need to be there listening, waiting for that moment where a thought pass through our minds, believe in that thought and start working on it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jhctattoos.wixsite.com/jhctattoo
• Instagram: @jhctattoo