We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tessa Combs a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tessa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

Every decision that I have had to make during my tattooing career, including just starting, has been a massive risk.
From quitting my full-time job to start my apprenticeship while I was still taking college classes, to leaving my mentor and moving shops, to signing a lease on my own building to open a private studio. In fact, I don’t really recall any decision I’ve made during my career that could be considered an easy move and not a massive jump.
Starting my apprenticeship, I had to quit my job and risk going hungry – the apprenticeship wasn’t open to me if I couldn’t be at the shop full-time hours and I was basically told that unless I quit my job it wouldn’t work out. Ultimately, I decided that I was already desperate and hungry, and I would rather be desperate and hungry in a career where I at least felt fulfilled – so I quit my job and started tattooing. Things were tough and I blew through all of my savings just paying bills and buying groceries; but considering how things are now I would definitely say that it worked out in my favor.
When I decided that I needed a different working environment due to discrepancies between me and my mentor, I remember how scared I was reaching out to another artist for an interview. This particular artist I had highly looked up to, admired, and really wanted to work alongside him, but I definitely felt that I wasn’t really worthy of doing so. The day that I decided to reach out to him I had been treated extremely poor and decided it was time to go; and the risk felt minuscule in comparison to the mass of issues that I was experiencing.
This leap of faith also worked in my favor, and I started working in the new shop almost immediately alongside a tattooer that was widely respected in the local community, among others who each taught me differing valuable lessons. It was at this shop that I built up a loyal clientele and was able to start settling into my niche.
During this I also got married, bought a house, and got pregnant with my daughter, which made every risk that came after ten times heavier. Tattooing does not provide a stable income, and money-management is key to surviving the winter months on an almost non-existent income while clients are reserving their funds for the holidays. I timed my pregnancy to give birth in the winter months so I wouldn’t be out of work missing out during busy season, but taking an extended unpaid maternity leave was definitely a risk that I didn’t plan on taking until her arrival via emergency c-section.
When I did get back into work, I had a massive opportunity fall into my lap. A building that had previously been set up as a tattoo shop for the past decade had opened up for rent extremely close to my home – and rent was beyond reasonable. Opening my own studio was not yet in any of my plans, and I originally wanted just a small private 600 sqft suite to rent but could not find any that did not have egregious rent prices for what they were worth. This studio, however, had four booths, a lobby, a complete walkout basement, and parking in the rear and front to boot. The studio was also out of the way for the privacy that I desired but still fairly close to a local military installment gate with potential for military traffic walk-ins.
The catch? The building needed an insane amount of work; and telling my boss that I was leaving to open my own shop was not going to be not fun. Not to mention that I had never paid any kind of booth rent up until this point and was operating solely on commission rate – so when you aren’t making money, you weren’t paying money. Rent and utilities, however, waited on nobody.
I sat on the idea for a little while and had massive amounts of support from my friends, family, and clients alike, but I was so afraid because I had so much more depending on my success now. Would my family go without? Would my infant daughter go hungry? Would I default on my mortgage and lose my home? It felt like I was gambling with mine and my family’s livelihoods at stake. I did the math, and I was already paying out more to my boss than I would be paying in rent and utilities on average.
Then, my boss told me that his building was likely getting sold out from under him. The building he alleged that he had owned. If I didn’t even know if I was going to have a place to work next week, why was I there? Signing a lease on my own building meant that I at least had control over what kind of risk I was taking – so I called my property manager and told her I wanted to sign asap.
Leaving wasn’t easy. My boss had a reputation for burning bridges with people when they no longer served to benefit him and had a horrible temper. Telling him was a risk that was harder to take than signing the lease for my building was – and it didn’t go well at all. But after all the blood, sweat, and tears my family, friends, and I put into renovating my building, seeing so many people (including ex-co-workers!) at my grand opening, it was so incredibly worth it.
A year and a half later, I still tell everyone it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

Tessa, 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’ve been an artist my entire life and knew I needed to create just as much as I needed to breathe to live.
Tattooing was not my 1st choice (I have an affinity for social work and being around children, so I wanted to teach art!) but boy am I oh-so glad things worked out the way they did. Looking back, I know the technical aspects of teaching and the debt school would have left me with would not have created fulfillment for me the way tattooing does.
I always wanted to tattoo, but I was searching for the stability that I did not have growing up and figured teaching was as stable as you could get. I graduated high school early at 17 and accepted a $72,000 scholarship to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I ended up never finishing my degree, because my boyfriend was suddenly hit and killed by a rogue truck being chased by the police back home.
I left Chicago and never went back, and I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be alive anymore, let alone if I still wanted to pursue a teaching degree.
2 years later I got a job, met someone, moved out… Things changed and my partner supported me while I was still figuring it all out. I decided I still wanted to teach – funny thing is, I was actively teaching at a preschool center for my local school system when I was offered my apprenticeship.
My dearest and closest friend started tattooing at a shop, and I was getting tattooed by her. When the shop went down an artist, she encouraged me to reach out to the shop to inquire about an apprenticeship. I’d been turned down by multiple shops before and was hesitant in doing so. When I was told no twice, I wanted to leave it, but she kept pushing me and insisted to her mentor that my artwork would speak for itself if he just gave me a chance and looked. And eventually, he did (Thank you, Abby).
Since then, I’ve been tattooing anything cute, kawaii, anime, and bold color that heals just as bright as I put it in. I tattoo in almost any style, but this is where I truly shine. It’s a fairly niche area of tattooing, but because of that I consistently have clients travel for my work.
I also get comments often on how my clients value that I make real art and hand-draw all of my designs from scratch. I think that my background in being an artist first and foremost makes me stand out amongst my competitors and fellow artists. In a world full of tattooers, I constantly feel that there are not enough tattoo artists, and in a world where AI and Pinterest are everywhere, people long for and value the authenticity of an artist that takes care in creating a real, raw, personal and unique design.
I take pride in doing so, but I also take pride in just meeting my clients at the level they feel comfortable at. I’ve seen too many tattooers with egos who are unapproachable, don’t or won’t answer messages, and frankly are just rude to their potential clients. Every day that a client tells me how pleasant their whole experience was, from booking to actually being tattooed, is a day I take pride in my job.
What I want people to know most about me is I just want to make cool and fun tattoos, and I’ll work with anyone as long as they respect and trust me. I have no ego – just a burning desire to create.

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

Make good posts consistently. I know it’s hard, it’s a lot of work, and extremely daunting starting out, but social media is your biggest friend when you own a small business.
It’s literally free advertising, and without it, 99% of my clients wouldn’t even know I exist.
When I stopped looking at Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as another work task and just had fun with it while remaining professional, that’s when I noticed my following and engagement jump. Authenticity is important, and people can tell when you aren’t having fun, being true to yourself, or are strictly trying to make a sale.
Post your work and let it speak, have fun doing it, and build community – these things will take you the furthest in my opinion.

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

Honestly, treating my clients with respect and empathy has always gotten them to return. The work is good, but I’ve had lots of clients leave good tattooers when they’ve been treated poorly by them.
When clients feel safe and respected and receive good work, they tell their friends, and then their friends get tattooed – and then they tell their friends and the cycle continues.
Social media has also been a huge benefactor when it comes to new or potential clients finding me. As long as I’m posting, people are noticing me – and even people states away have travelled after finding me on the internet!
Make good work, be good to the people getting the work, and never take any of it for granted. Clientele will follow in waves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thepinktoadstool.squarespace.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinktoadstool_tattoo
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/215339321673258