Meet Roxane Kressin

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

Hi Roxane , really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I never wanted to work as an artist.
Actually I always thought that one day I would become a surgeon.
I had spent my teenage years studying and writing good grades so that one day I would be able to get into medical school. To me art was never an option to even be considered as a career choice.
However, I have always been drawn to art and beautiful creations.
I spent a lot of time marvelling at artworks, paintings and drawings – wondering how it was humanly possible to capture such fleeting moment and raw emotions with nothing but a pencil stroke or a bit of paint. You know the quiet kid that always sits in the back of the classroom scribbling int heir notebook? That was me.
I had sketchbooks full of scribbles and little drawings, whole worlds made up and sketched out.
I remember having my eyes glued to comic book pages, soaking up every detail of how the characters were designed, how they were coloured and how alive they felt.

Growing up the tale of the “starving artist” was always a cautioning one. The artists that had made it, selling paintings for exorbitant amounts of money, might as well have been from another planet. Kind of like how you know celebrities’’ names and you watch them on TV-Screens and Posters but the idea of meeting them in real life and seeing that they are actual people is hard to fathom?
So I settled with the though that art couldn’t be a career, definitely not one that paid the bills – a hobby at most.

As I was about to start my final years of school, one fateful day I met someone who was an artist – a real life one, paying taxes and affording to live on the money he made. And he agreed that I could come and help him out over the summer and see what his life was like.
My first day with him was devastating.
He was a kind and patient teacher, so there was nothing that he did wrong. Seeing all his artwork and hearing all those stories of his career was mesmerizing. And then he gave me a specific prompt to draw – and I had to realize that I am nowhere near the level of drawing well enough to keep up. I went home and cried for a good bit that day. I was never a patient person but I always had been stubborn. And something about not being able to draw well enough for my own measure made all the gears in my head turn.

It took 2 days until I came home to my parents and proudly told them “I’m not going to medical school, I will be an artist!”
I guess it could be said that they kept their enthusiasm for this absolutely not rash decision of mine to themselves – but they did offer me a bargain. As any worried parents their concern came from a good place, the tale of the starving artist haunting their minds. In Germany you can go about two ways to take up a profession – either you do a formal training of 3 years or you take the academic route and go to university for a degree. Not doing either of those options makes it very difficult to be employed later on in any job that is above minimum wage. So my parent’s bargain was to not immediately go off on this adventure that the art world seemed to be but to get a degree/formal job training of any job of my choosing first. In return they would support my decision even though they believed it was not a good choice.

So while I was working on my degree as a communication’s designer I also kept coming back to that artist’s art studio who had taken me on for the summer. I spent every free minute working with him on some creations, studying his techniques and working on some projects. And after the first year of working for him, drawing through the nights and every minute of my free time, I held my first comic book – written, drawn and edited by myself. The feeling was incredible.
I couldn’t stop myself anymore. The more I drew the more I submerged myself in art and design – trying to find that one thing that really was ‘me”. While still being in university I started taking on clients for commissions and smaller art jobs. My list of client’s grew steadily and by the time I finished my degree I decided against finding a secure day job and jumped straight into being self-employed in the beginning of 2020. Which also would turn out to be my most productive year. I found my style working with inks and markers

And then the planet was hit by a pandemic.
My inbox filled up with client’s cancelling their projects and I felt like I had hit rock bottom. As I now lived by myself, with bills and taxes to pay, I now had to take up my former side job as a cleaning lady again. It felt like everything I had worked towards had crumbled around me and I miserably failed.
As the pandemic progressed and my life savings dwindled rapidly I made my peace with having to apply for jobs in some design agency – I had the degree as per request of my parents. But the thought alone was dreadful.

The morning I had chosen to browse through job offers I got a call out of the blue, asking if I were open to do creative workshop. I never considered teaching myself but I was open to the idea. I also figured that I might give myself a trial run and create videos on social media, teaching people how to draw and work with different art materials. My videos took off on Tiktok and my workshops booked out. New commissions came in and within a short amount of time I was back able to let go of my cleaning job.
I was an amazing time being able to create and experiment so much with my art again. However now the feeling of not having found „my thing“ was even stronger than before. That was until a former fellow student posted on her instagram that she was opening up her own tattoo studio. The concept was as well impressive as progressive. Every tattoo a piece of art, uniquely designed for every client in an artistic kind of way.
I was immediately thrilled by the idea and even though I had never even seen a tattoo studio from the inside without thinking twice I contacted her.

It might seem weird to someone that a person without tattoos is so enthralled by the idea of working in a tattoo studio, but I had always been fascinated by tattoos. I loved the look of them, but had also seen quite a few that were horribly done. My lack of knowledge about tattoos and in combination with my indecisiveness had never posed to me a good foundation to be getting tattooed myself. I also heard a lot of stories of how brutal and hard the industry was, especially getting an apprenticeship.

I became her apprentice and I yet again my definition of the word “artist” changed again.
Sure thing, as an artist the journey of creating is one that never stops.
But for the first time in all my artistic experiments and excursions I really felt like I found my purpose.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am an artist and tattoo artist.
My work mostly consists of two different things nowadays. One of them is that I teach people – how to draw, tutorials, explaining materials, exercises to improve. I love sharing my knowledge about art and seeing others get better with some of my advise, techniques or even just motivation and inspiration.

The other part of my work is that I am a tattoo artist. Tattoo artist, not tattooer or tattooist. The difference is that every design I create is uniquely for the client, made to fit their expectations in my artistic style. No design gets done twice.
I love their reactions – seeing them come to the tattoo atelier already excited, from the first look when they see the design and the stencil on themselves and once they are done the finished tattoo.
A lot of people also share some details about the meaning of their new tattoo and it’s always an honor to be trusted with their projects as well as them sharing those details.
A lot of times I hear clients say “I didn’t like this body part of mine and now that I have the tattoo, I love looking there all the time.” It’s incredible to be part of this procress for them to reclaim their positivity and selflove.

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

Consistency, patience with yourself and the desire to create.
If you feel the burning desire to fill this world with your creations – go for it. Even if you feel like no one is watching you or cares for your art – your people are out there.
As a very impatient person myself, I did have to learn that being patient with myself is vital to the success as an artist and my own well-being. Things don’t happen overnight. But they definitely do happen if you stay consistent and keep working on yourself.

If your’re overwhelmed start of little. Do 10 minutes a day, but do them consistently. If that works well, do 20 minutes. Do an hour. Do whatever actually works for you. And don’t make the mistake of getting stuck with one thing. Keep trying new things.

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

Along my journey I met a lof of people. There is a thing to be learned from each one of them. Some will teach you things about how you should do things, some will teach you how best not to approach things.

Having people that support you and believe in you is incredibly important. Also having people that share your views and are experiencing similar situations in ther (work) life is extremely helpful.

I am currently lucky enough to be working with two of my best friends who are all self-employed as well. The support we can give one another is unmatched as well is the motivation and inspiration that comes with working along two amazing artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.inkwayarts.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roxane_kressin/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RoxaneKressin
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@roxane_kressin

Image Credits

Portrait (Headshot) photo credit: Frank Kressin

all others: Roxane Kressin