We recently connected with Nathan Evans and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Nathan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Response: This is a funny topic to me and if you know me or had known me, I am generally against taking risks and prefer to play things safe. I was raised conservatively and to be afraid of risks. However, when I look back at my life, all my “success” comes from the risks I took at the right times. I personally think they are all calculated risks, but they are risks that have changed my life. None of this occurred to me until my mother was voicing her concern for the amount of money I had just invested into my business, Killjoy Tattoo. She told me I need to be careful and she was concerned I would not be able to live since I had just sunk all of my money, credit cards, and time into trying to build a nice shop/art studio. As mothers can do, she was raising my anxiety level. Suddenly I realized I always take risks. Regeneration was second nature to me now. I had been risking everything since I started this endeavor from the time I was young to my current life. If you met me now, you would most likely dispute this because I am painfully shy and self conscious . To get farther and move my career along, I had to start “putting myself out there”. I had to meet new people, engage them , listen to them, and learn from them, but first I had to actually speak with them. This was a conscious choice and I still remember sitting in my tiny room at my friend’s house thinking about how I could move forward. The first time this was evident, I was at my 3rd tattoo convention. I decided instead of just sitting in the corner hiding away, I told myself to be friendly and speak with other tattooers. I did. It worked. I made “friends” and it was so easy. Just be nice. Well… that actually lead to another huge change in my life. Within one month one of the men I met offered me a job in Iowa. I made a decision. I am moving to Iowa… I know I know. Who moves to Iowa? Well… as it turns out, it was the best decision I have ever made. I knew no one, I had never been there and truth be told I had $1000 in the bank. I was scared to death. The day I drove there it was freezing, I had never driven that far alone, I had never tried to drive with a U-haul, Gps wasn’t really a thing yet and the ones that were, I couldn’t afford at the time. I arrived with nowhere to live and no idea what would happen. Three years later, I was gaining confidence , I had made great friends, I had a blossoming career and I decided to change it up again and risk everything to become a full time traveling tattooer. As I packed all my things up and put them in storage I had a feeling of malaise come over me. Where would I stay? What if I didn’t make enough money? How would I survive? As I pulled away from Des Moines, I was so afraid. Taking these chances were not how I was raised. Being confident was definitely not how I was raised. So this was a large undertaking. However, I managed to travel full time for almost 7 years, seeing the world, making a living, and making some amazing friends. After a while you forget all the fears you had and it just becomes second nature. I had to learn how to navigate foreign countries, trains, buses, airports, cities, languages etc. Where I started I would never have imagined I would have been as fortunate as I have been. It wasn’t until my mother was panicking about me investing all my money into this new venture that I realized I am always starting over. Constantly striving to push ahead. Risking things is just a part of success. If you don’t risk anything, you don’t gain anything. So just a short time after we opened we are now one of the more successful shops in the area. The initial nervousness that I had felt in the beginning was just another necessary step to the process. We have a great community and amazing clients where we are. Now I am calculating the next move to propel us farther ahead.

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?

Well I may have answered a little in the the last section but here goes. I squeaked into the industry of tattooing by complete chance. I do not believe in luck, but this was an extremely fortuitous situation that landed me here. I had been looking for an apprenticeship in tattooing. I had the gear (that I bought out of a magazine) just sitting at my house. I was butchering friends and family out of the house. I tried all the shops looking for apprenticeships but nowhere wanted to hire. After I graduated college I did not even look for a job with my degree as I was making so “much” money at the bar I worked at as security. On Wednesday nights I usually brought my drawing pad and a pencil and drew while I was there since it was always slow. A couple of guys walked in that didn’t look like they belonged in the bar I worked at. Not the usual college kids. A little while later, one of the guys approached me and asked if I tattooed anywhere and I casually said I did not. He then asked if I wanted to? To which I obviously downplayed this and said I did. He said his shop did apprenticeships and I should swing out. BOOM ! I was in. I did have a crisis as I lived in Ohio where driving 45 minutes to work is not a normal thing. However, I decided that I may not get another chance so I better suck it up. I did. When I finished the apprenticeship I had a friend that ran a reputable shop. She told me when I was ready I could work there but she wouldn’t apprentice me so I had motivation to get better. She hired me one year after my “apprenticeship”. I say that in quotes because it was actually questionable as to what I learned. I learned more tattoo wise the first few days with my friend Nicole than in a year at the apprenticeship. To be perfectly candid, art is hard for me , drawing is hard for me, tattooing is hard for me. It took a lot of time and still does for me. I cannot just sit down and produce work. I have to plan it, and look for reference , and do thumbnails, and sketch after sketch. Fortunately 20 years ago tattooing wasn’t as busy as it is now and I had the time to devote to it and my friend/boss was supportive in always helping me grow artistically and personally. I owe her the world. So for people that don’t know tattooing or do, I am burdened with having a certain style. I don’t try to fit into this style like most people. I draw how I can translate my ideas best. I don’t have the abilities that many people do. So I spent a lot of years alone in a room trying to concoct an interesting image without having natural ability. I really try to do it as simply as possible because for me the healed tattoo is what matters. When I try to do things too complicated they heal not well. The way I currently tattoo I know how my work will heal and it heals perfectly. Just the way I want. I keep to simple shapes, sometimes “wonky”, because to me it is more interesting. I keep the color to a simple sculptural style where I try to make it as dynamic as possible. Dark to light and all dark edges usually have the lightest edge of something else next to it causing it to appear very bright. I am really inspired by nature and animals. I have such an eclectic taste in everything m, I find inspiration in everything. As I mentioned earlier, I really had the chance to adapt this and tweak this when I moved to Iowa. I was completely alone, no friends, no money, barely any food but I had art supplies and time. So my days were spent in this tiny apartment in the one chair I had, a couch wouldn’t fit nor did I have the money for a couch, and draw and taught myself how to paint. Once I started doing conventions with my friend, Joshua, who I met at the 3rd convention, things really started happening for me. I met great artists. He was kind enough to help me with so much I cannot possibly repay him. He gave me information in a fashion I could understand and took time to explain tattoo machines. He truly helped me get to where I am now and still to this day he is my gauge of everything if I have questions. So now I was off and running with this “unique” style. People were getting tattoos of things I loved drawing instead of just picking something off the wall or bringing in things. I always hoped that the hard work and sacrifices would pay off but I never thought they actually would. Well they did. What was really mind blowing for me is when people started to buy my random art pieces I was painting. I didn’t actually take any painting classes or anything so I just started wasting paper one day and trying things. Then a few years later people were paying me money for things that I was creating in my spare time! It was so flattering. It also just makes me want to get better and make the next piece more fun and more weird and unique.
Initially I would have to say that nothing sets me apart from others. That Is why when people say “its so easy for you, you don’t understand” my mind is blown and I get upset. It’s not easy for me, I started the same place as everyone else. I didn’t have a leg up at all. However, observing in the outside world and watching tattooers, artists, apprentices, and shops around the world, I guess I do have a few things that set me apart. Not from everyone, but from a lot of people. What that is could be a number of things. I go to work. When I go to work, I go there to work. I want to work. I like work. I like the idea of completing things. I like to make things for people and I like to make them smile. I don’t go to work to mess about. It is fun to mess around at work, but if there is work to be done, I am on it. I also don’t blame people for my situations. I may b*tch about it as part of a joke or amongst friends as a normal human irritation, but never do I let that stop me from being accountable for my own situation. I actually think the reason I am successful is because I blame myself for failures and that weighs so heavy on me that I use it to push me harder and forward more.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

So before I had ever started tattooing or being an “artist” ( I still have a hard time calling myself that because I look at all the great artists and think it’s irresponsible to mention myself in the same vein as them) , I worked for my father in the summers for an excavation company. In the summer we would have to work at these local factories. I would see these older men and women doing the same thing every day, eating the same lunches, wearing the same clothes, going on the same vacations, etc. It really seemed awful to me. Like, damn, I have to do this same job the rest of my life, and this is all it’ll amount to? I AM NOT saying there is anything wrong with factory work, nor do I have anything against it. It is honest hard work and solid pay. I am just not cut out for it and I knew it back then. However, becoming an artist was never really an option. I don’t think my family even knew you could do that. We are working class from our genes. Being an artist wasn’t a thing you did. You go to college, then start a family, get a house, a mortgage, etc, etc. So technically I had no clue. SOOO, for me , the most rewarding part of being a creative is that it really is all on my shoulders. My level of success is dictated by how much work I am willing to put in. Being creative, in my opinion, takes nurturing and consistency like anything else. The more I put into it the more I get out of it. I like that I am in control of what happens. Again, not at all am I downplaying or ripping on other careers or jobs at all. For me though, my ability to make my own schedule, charge my own prices, choose how much work I want to take on, where I want to work, what I want to do are absolutely amazing. Everything good in my life has come from this career and I am forever grateful for all the people that have helped me get here and continue to help me stay here.

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 am not sure if this is solitaire to creatives but I can tell you that struggling to understand an independant business owner (our product being ourselves in this case) is a tough thing to deal with. There really is no start or finish for artists. For most of us, we use preparation as as key to success so we have to do that in our non-work time. Family, friends, significant others find this annoying and rarely seem to understand as they are usually used to a 9-5 style job that they leave at the work site. We take our jobs home with us. We never know when it will be done or how long it will take. Sometimes it comes quicker, sometimes it does not. To speak with total candor, it’s hard to be creative when someone is giving you shit about when you will be done or how long with it take or when will you be home or why can’t you make it here or there. I think we know that it is tough on people but this is the life. For me, doing this was never about money. The money is great, now. However, the impetus was never money for this especially since there wasn’t any in it to start. Now as I am older, I enjoy having money as I don’t want to have to struggle to pay the heating bill for the rest of my life. There is something about creating something that satisfies me. It didn’t exist until I put it on paper or panel or wood, whatever it may be, and to think that maybe that thing will make someone happy is awesome. Maybe this goofy little thing I did will be around after my body has moved on. It’s a satisfying thought to me at least

Contact Info:

• Website: killjoytattoo.com
• Instagram: @nathanevans32 @killjoy_tattoo

Image Credits
I could not upload any newer photos for some reason. The photos of me working are from a kid named Joe.