We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Veronique Wiebe. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Veronique below.

Veronique, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

In the tattoo industry being successful can look like a lot of different things. Some view awards from conventions the ultimate success. Owning a shop can be a symbol of a tattoo artist’s accomplishments or endless clientele and having a full schedule.

From my experience with all three of these benchmarks what I believe the ultimate symbol of success in tattooing is the essence of freedom. When an artist has developed their lifestyle around their goals inside and outside the industry, and has created versatility in their lives as a whole.

What does that look like ?

Owning a shop is. great, until higher operating costs end up leading to making cuts, or you being nailed to your chair to make up for the extra income needed. Winning awards is great until it loses meaning to just be performing at shows with the extra stress of needing to keep up a winning reputation. Having a full schedule for years can be exhilarating and draining at the same time, there’s only so much time in a day and planning out your life years in advance and not letting clients down when things come up can be the ultimate stressor.

Freedom in tattooing comes around when you balance your work and your life successfully. Your finances pay for your lifestyle, you’re booked in a fashion that allows freedom with your schedule to do the things outside of tattooing your love and your are able to network and connect with not just your clients but also your industry.

Ive been locked into the burnout lane more than once, with one particular part of my tattoo career ending in a bad shoulder injury that required time off, injections, and physio to heal properly. Just from tattooing too much, too long and not having boundaries with my schedule and clientele. The obsession with our craft and the time it takes to create epic artwork on skin that clients are dedicating their time money and pain to you- its an interesting monster to manage at times. The strive for perfection and to be better never goes away. but being injured isn’t the road to success.

Owning a studio comes with its own set of challenges to over come. Managing your start up tattoo studio as well as tattooing comes at the sacrifice of your personal times X10. Again- not great work like balance.

Success in this industry looks like being able to be real with yourself- who you want to be for your clients as well as the example you want to be for the industry.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Veronique Wiebe, I am the Owner and resident tattoo artist at Aurora Tattoo in Canmore Alberta. Located in the mountains of Alberta gives our studio offers a blend of natural beauty and artistic expression for an unforgettable tattoo experience. I specialize in illustrative colour work, focusing on the natural world and its wonders as well as fantasy themes which both blend together well. Im proficient at many styles since growing up in the industry for more than 17 years. I finished a fine arts degree with Lakehead University in Ontario, as well as my tattoo apprenticeship from Chad Gilbert in Thunder Bay Ontario from 2008-late 2009.

I opened Aurora Tattoo as my first tattoo studio mid 2020 after working at Electric Grizzly Tattoo for a little over 6 years. I wanted Aurora to focus on not only great tattoo artwork but also the client experience. Showing that tattoo shops aren’t all dark and gloomy intimidating spaces but also a blend of edgy, fun vibes in a bright atmosphere as well as being able to immerse yourself into the beauty of the mountains while creating a lasting piece of person expression.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Resilence has been my theme almost the entirety of owning Aurora. I was involved in a severe motorcyle accident spring of 2020 resulting in the death of a close friend and some broken bones in my arm and a near death experience myself. I am grateful and very very lucky to be alive.

That same summer we had two more motorcycle incidents from cars not paying attention to motorcycles, getting rear ended in a 4 way stop and a rock truck throwing a softball sized rock at my husband on the highway while riding and me behind him resulting in him going down but being reliably ok.

We had also just bought our first home – and doubled our financial obligations right before covid happened- we had three months to get used to having a much larger mortgage payment and then I wasn’t making any income for well over a year because of the lockdowns.

I opened Aurora Summer of 2020- with ZERO PLAN and one and half months notice, after multiple covid lockdowns which drastically affected that tattoo and personal services industry and the overall stressors the entire experience created with everyone. Shortly after opening we were locked down twice – with no financial help, just our clients to keep up a float buying artwork and our savings.

Then in 2021 our dog passed away suddenly, and we were in a roll over three months later in our truck and our other dog had life threatening injuries but survived, my dream truck did not. We came out uninjured but once again had to relive through the trauma of a motor vehicle accident.

In 2022 there were two wildfires that threatened our home in the mountains, but came out unscathed.
In 2023 my father passed away tragically in a downhill skiing accident, on my husbands birthday, while we were on our first vacation since everything started back in 2020…..

All while trying to run and maintain an art and client based business in one of the most expensive places to live in Canada.

Needless to say – I wouldn’t change a thing. Life will keep happening , so you have to keep happening to life. Its all choices. How your show up for yourself and others, how your slow down and have compassion for yourself, your goals and your experiences helps build you into the person and the life story you get to tell.

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

Social media in the tattoo industry has changed multiple times over the years.

Find your brand pillars. Understand you are a brand online now. You’re selling something. Tattoos but also the experience you offer, so don’t forget to sell that.

Following your brand pillars helps you take the first step towards knows what kind of messaging you need to develop and send out to the world.

Social media works with ‘Attention Currency’. If you can keep peoples attention, and then pivot that attention, or get them to share that attention with others – you have a great equation for successfully showing your work to many.

Learning to funnel is also a key element for a tattooer online. You can post pictures for ever but without the ability for a prospective client to know wearer to go to get to you, they will keep scrolling.

The internet is an endless world of marketing info – the tattoo artists of today need to pay attention to that part of their business- keep it simple to start, then develop further. Even a mailing list that you actively use is a great step in there right direction.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.auroratattoo.ca
• Instagram: @vonvibrance @ auroratatt00
• Other: tik tok: @auroratatt00 @vonvibrance