We were lucky to catch up with Jonathan Bass recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jonathan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

Well, this was definitely an unplanned viral moment from several years ago but here’s the story.
I was working at another tattoo shop here in the town I live in and I had done a really wild tattoo on a coworker at the time, looking back I suppose it was far more tame than many images you see today but it was a crazy human skull that had blotter LSD on its tongue and it was kinda random. We did this tattoo and maybe two weeks pass or a bit more and the tattoo is healed up pretty well. Now, at this time, “soapy or foamy” tattoo reveals were a hot social media trend. The artist would spray a foamy soap over the new tattoo and then very slowly wipe the foam away to reveal the new “masterpiece “. I’ve been tattooing for about 24 years and I find social media trends fairly pretentious and the type of things that people who crave attention based more on bells and whistles than actual skill or talent. That being said, I got a very (funny to me) idea and that was to buy a can of Spaghetti-O’s and pour it on this LSD eating skull and slowly wipe it away while filming it. As luck would have it, the “Mom’s Spaghetti “ song parody was very big at that time. I got set up, started filming and my coworker and I barely got through the filming without breaking down and cry laughing. I did a super slow Spaghetti-O tattoo reveal set to the Eminem “mom’s spaghetti “ song, I posted it to Instagram and Facebook and it got a ton of traction from my friends in the business and I had gotten a good laugh out of it as well as my coworkers had also. Cool joke, moving on…right? No. The next day I woke up and that thing was making rounds all over the world and I had different social platforms sending messages about getting consent to use the footage. It was insanity! By day two the haters had arrived on the scene and I was being accused of ruining perfectly good food that starving people would be happy to have as well as being a bad person for not using a vegan product, blah, blah,blah… I still got a great laugh about the whole thing, I’m not sure if it really got me more of a social following or not and I don’t care to this day but it was a fun joke that grew some legs and had a great run.

Jonathan, 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’m a 47 year old tattooer and artist based in Madison, WI. I’ve been tattooing for 24 years and currently have my own shop that I run by myself. I grew up in and around Nashville, TN until I was 16. My father was a self taught machinist and engineer just as his father before him. I was born into being a craftsman because of that. I learned how to build custom furniture, advanced woodworking as well as some metal working skills while growing up and I’ve had steady employment since about age 10. After moving to Wisconsin, I finished my schooling and went to work for a small engineering company doing metal construction and fabrication all over North America. I traveled extensively for a few years before discovering tattooing.
I was unable to go out to bars due to my age at the time so I started killing time at tattoo shops in the different places I traveled to. I could afford one medium sized tattoo or a few small ones per week usually. I got my very first tattoo at New York Adorned in NYC on a late Saturday night and while my coworkers were relaxing on a sofa in the waiting area, I started a conversation with the tattoo artist. I told him about my travels and then, he told me of his and all of a sudden something clicked in my head…Wait, I can draw pictures on people AND travel the world?!!! It all sounded so fantastic and pirate like. Just out in the world at large marking people and having experiences that didn’t involve construction meetings, dealing with East Coast unions as well as slicing your hands open on sheet metal. This was something that required you to really learn many different things and wear many hats and you could do it on your own terms.
I began my apprenticeship about 2 years later and was taught how to mix pigment, build tattoo machines and tune them( I had to build my own with my mentor) in order to work. Coworkers showed me how to build needles from raw materials and I learned about proper sterilization procedures, how to maintain an autoclave as well as how to work really closely with the public.

I build tattoo machines from scratch to this day and over the years I’ve taught myself how to make hand painted signage, pin striping, welding, brazing as well as almost anything related to working on human skin. I’m very direct and honest in all of my endeavors and I’m really grateful to all of my customers that get tattooed, commission paintings and signs as well as the people that buy the tattoo machines and signage I make. Thank you all for making this pirate lifestyle possible for all these years.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Work. When you’re done with that, work some more. Learn all that you can and steal shortcuts and tricks from people you admire.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

When I started tattooing I had to unlearn almost everything I knew about art. They’re not really very closely related in all reality. There’s a lot of moving parts in tattooing that aren’t present in just painting a picture or something of that nature.
In tattooing, you are dealing with another human and marking their body permanently. People are not canvases and I don’t care what a certain television show says to the contrary. Tattooers are human as well and have bodily limitations just like the customers. You’re also dealing with an electronic device that can be a bit quirky, you’re a psychiatrist, a nurse, artist, mechanic, and a human lie detector.
Tattoos are most certainly art but none of the standard techniques or methods that are used in making an oil painting or anything else really apply when you’re on skin. I broke a lot of art habits when I started tattooing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Jonbasstattoo.com
• Instagram: @jonbass1
• Facebook: Tailor Made Tattoo , Jon Bass
• Other: @tailormadetat2msn for shop IG

Image Credits

Jon Bass , Dan Bailey