As seen in "Tattoo Flash", written by Jade in January 2007
Sea Monkeys - remember them? They came in a little envelope that you poured into a bowl of warm water. The blurbs on the package excitedly promised you'd soon have a bowl full of cute little aquatic pets capable of doing all kinds of cool tricks. All that most of us ended up with were a batch of mindless brine shrimp.
But obviously someone lucked out; tattooist Jon Highland insists that he was born a Sea Monkey.
His shop's website helpfully documents this amazing scientific phenomenon, telling us that Jon has been drawing, painting, and scultping "since he evolved hands and feet from his early tadpole stage." Eventually, Jon outgrew his small plastic monkey tank, grew a mullet and taught himself how to tattoo. Eight short years ago, Jon opened 12 Monkeys, the first tattoo studio in Tracy, California. Now, Jon is bald, has grown ear hair, sings in his car, and dresses his dog, Casey, in stupid clothes. Obviously you need to get tattooed by this guy, just for the sake of being able to say you have skin art inked by a Sea Monkey. And happily his artwork is as cool as Jon's sense of humor.
Jons an old-school tattooer who is not into the bright, hot lights of fame that have been turned on the tattoo world recently. "Those tattoo reality TV shows and the way they portray artists in a certain way really bug me," Jon says. "We all really don't want to be 'rock stars' signing autographs and goofing around in front of the cameras. Some of us actually are concerned only about bettering ourselves as artists and tattooers!
"Plus, these TV shows also make non-tattooers think its a good idea to open tattoo shops without knowing anything about the business or the art. They open them only because it's the new cool thing to do and they think it will make them rich and famous. Yeah, right. I also get pissed off about non-tattooers putting on these huge conventions where tattooing comes last and selling car rims and beef-jerky comes first. It's so so sad."
In his continuing quest to deliver great tattoos to the world, Jon makes a point of not focusing on one particular style. He says he doesn't want to "get cornered into doing one thing forever," so he happily does a little of everything. Right now, he's especially enjoying inking black-and-gray designs, but that might change by the time you get yourself to hs shop.
Hes also really enjoying doing realistic images plucked straight from nature, like flowers and trees. He feels that these from- life designs are naturally more free-flowing and so they work really well with the curves and shape of the human body.
His favorite part about tattooing is that he'll never master the art form. "It's a fact that no matter how long you have been tattooing you can always learn something new. Watching other tattooers at work always gives you a new perspective to take back to your own work, whether it's fresh techniques, a new artistic twist, how to set up your machines, or just a bit of useful tattoo bedside manner."
Jon loves working with clients who know what they want, but are also open-minded enough to let their tattoo artist have input into the design. When he's not working, Jon enjoys painting, camping, riding motocross, and "doing almost anything outdoors with my dog, Casey."
Right now, he's dividing his work time between conventions and working in his shop. Jon's been tattooing for about 13 years, "give or take," has had his shop for about eight years, and is "loving every minute of it."
He tries to attend five or six conventions a year, and learn everything he can from everyone he meets at each show. He hopes to do more guest artist stints in the future, saying that working with other people and in different sets of shop dynamics is always fun. "I love my business, my shop, and the guys I work with," says Jon, when asked what he figures the future holds for a Sea Monkey that evolved into an artist. "Hopefully over the long run we will all still be right here just doin' our thing."