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

Kevin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I learned to tattoo with some help from a couple old friends (Shaun Evans and Josh Young) and a lot of trial and error… Unfortunately where I grew up tattoo culture was still a bit taboo and the craft was still difficult to learn about without a proper mentor. Knowing what I know now I think I would’ve ventured out of the small town I was living in a bit sooner. As intimidating as it was to leave what I knew as home I think that leaving the area for a bigger city with more culture/tattoo culture would’ve been very beneficial for my formative years. There has been many obstacles along the way, one in particular was just finding a proper teacher who was willing and wanted to teach. I feel I never had a proper apprenticeship and if I could change one thing about my journey I think that would be it.

Kevin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started tattooing in 2011 after practicing on my brother and some friends for a while out of various places other than tattoo shops… I would basically take whatever I could get and that meant sometimes just tattooing a friend in an apartment I shared with my older brother Eric. I started working with a few friends in a shop called Raven Well Tattoo in Clinton, NY shortly there after. I was always motivated to become an artist and after finding tattooing I was sure this is what I was meant to do.

I specialized in full color Neo-traditional tattooing for the first 5-6 years of my career. Over the past 5 years or so I’ve started focusing on blackwork and black and grey floral/ornamental tattooing. Recently I’ve always started to focus on geometric/ornamental tattooing mostly. I feel a big shift in my work coming and I’m super excited for it.

I think one thing that sets me apart from others is I never stop trying to grow and evolve my work.

I’m very proud of how far my work has evolved over the years and I always strive to create the best tattoo and experience possible for all of my clients.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think the most rewarding aspect of being an artist in my industry is creating art that is living and breathing and walking around talking to people, telling people who did their tattoo. I literally draw and color on people for a living and d*ck around with my friends and smoke weed and people pay me for it. I don’t think it could really get much better than that. Next time I forget I need to read this interview. LOL

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I look at my whole life as a creative journey I suppose. I felt from a young age that my purpose was to create. I could feel a passion for it for as long as I could remember. When I found tattooing I realized that I had finally found my true purpose and from then my goal was just to create art/tattoos that I loved.

Contact Info:

• Website: kevinjohnson143.com
• Instagram: @kevinjohnson_143

Image Credits
Sean Fister (personal photo credit) Tattoo photos are all by me