Meet Bradley Macom

We recently connected with Bradley Macom and have shared our conversation below.

Bradley, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

I think really creativity comes and flows but for me personally I just keep myself busy with a bunch of different projects. I try to not put too much pressure on any one thing and instead work freely on different tasks at the same time. If I feel stuck, I will listen to music, flip through a book or flood my brain with imagery and simply draw or doodle with no purpose. I think anything you do, anywhere you go there is an oppurtunity to preform a creative act and implementing that every day gives me endless inspiration.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Well, I did my first tattoo on my dad when I was 13 and ever since then I knew I wanted to be a tattooer .So every day while I was in high school I painted and painted until I was about 25 years old. I found the right apprenticeship, someone that could really put time in and teach me out a tattoo. I did that for years and apprentice just watching cleaning learning. That kind of opened up my whole world and really taught me the importance of intention and how serious I wanted to take my career and art. After tattooing for about four years, I fell into pottery. we have a wheel and a kiln at the tattoo shop. I woke up every day 6 AM. Went to the shop and practice for about a year. with both forms of art you really have to have intention with what you’re doing. There’s a certain finality to both in which every move you make counts. And both have such a long history with such deep rooted meaning and all different sorts of backgrounds. I think, searching for the past in both crafts has really inspired me to continue learning and finding inspiration in so many different ways. Now my tattooing influences my pottery, and pottery directly reflects into my tattooing.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I think the first thing is you can’t be afraid to fail. I’ll do some thing 2,3,4 times before I feel like it’s right. And usually the first one is right. I think finding the beauty in something that is raw and searching for the feeling is more important than perfection. Every mess is a learning experience and puts you on the right path. I also told myself when I was young that if you just spend 30 minutes to an hour on anything you do, you will get better at it. I think that anything in life can be learned it’s just a matter of investment or time. I do not do it for clout, or social media. I don’t want or think I deserve anything right away, I do art because of the way it makes me feel, the calmness it brings to my life. I have invested everything I have into art, and it has given me everything back. Patience, intention, and the will to keep learning and growing.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

I’ve had a really great number of mentors in my life. My parents growing up my mom always supported me in art, pushed me to keep drawing painting and inspiring me. My dad definitely gave me my work ethic. It’s not a matter of if it can be done, but how and I think that’s a really important thing I learned in my life. Later on my mentor in tattooing Kyle Oxford, he really showed me how to be an artist. He pushed me in ways I’ve never been pushed before. I used to frame houses. I would do that six a.m to 3 o’clock go straight to the tattoo shop wash up and work there till eight. I did that for over a year, I was to paint 300 sheets of flash before I could start tattooing And could only paint after all of my chores were done at the shop. This was the most formative time in my life. I still work with Kyle and he still inspired me everyday. Last but not least is my wife Elizabeth. Shes really is my rock whenever I have a disaster in the studio (and life) or need help figuring out why something is not working. She has a much different perspective than me in art which helps when I’m too deep into a project. She also has always given me so much freedom and patience when I spend hours everyday in my studio. She’s always understood how important my craft is to me which is an important thing when your married to an obsessive artist I think.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Macomtattoo.com
• Instagram: @bradley.macom – @macom.ceramics – @tat2peace