Today we’d like to introduce you to William Joseph.
Hi William, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
As a lifelong artist and musician, in 2018 at 24 I began pursuing tattooing in Austin Texas. After a several year apprenticeship I began tattooing full time. I spent most of the last 5 years traveling the continental United States tattooing in various cities and living on the road. I took residency in phoenix Arizona for a few years to work on an art show with a group of fellow tattooers, and then after another stint of traveling full time I moved to Portland Oregon, which had been my home away from home for some time before then.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
In a lot of ways it was really easy, and in others not so much. I think one of the most difficult aspects has been the need to be actively present on social media in the current landscape of contemporary tattooing, which has fed into various mental health issues that I’m sure a lot of artist deal with. I always say if tattooing was just painting and putting needle to skin it would be the easiest job in the world. But being your own marketing team, navigating the social structure of shops and the industry as a whole, keeping up with emails and messages and booking and posting, it can be a pretty heavy work load beyond just the artistic practice, and has been at times borderline crippling.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a painter and tattooer. I do classic traditional tattooing heavily informed by European turn of the century tattooing. As far as painting, i guess you could call it folk art, or outsider art. I’ve mostly worked with gouache and ink on paper or board, but in recent years have been exploring more mixed media on canvas. In 2024 & 2025 I worked on a group show where I feel as though myself and the others involved pushed ourselves to make some of the work I am most proud of in this stylistic iteration of my career.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Resilience and failure are the building blocks to success. You’re never going to make something that is perfect, and if you wait til you do you’ll be stunted by the pressure to succeed. Art is about expressing the self in ways that words simply cannot, and that self expression is often messy and imperfect, but if it is authentic, and allows you a space to be vulnerable, then perhaps you could be onto something.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://williamjosephtattoos.com
- Instagram: @williamjosephtattoos
