Conversations with James Gannon

Today we’d like to introduce you to James Gannon.

Hi James, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve always been an artist even as a kid. I was obsessed with graffiti and tattoos even at a young age. I rarely did actual classwork in school, instead I mainly just drew in class. As a teenager a friend’s older brother came home from prison and taught me how to make a tattoo machine out of a Walkman (portable cassette player for the younger generation that might not know lol) and I started experimenting on my friends. Unfortunately as a late teen my life took a negative turn and art was put on the back burner. I won’t go into too much detail but for several years my life was consumed with street life, drugs, jails, and institutions. In my late twenties tho I was living in Indianapolis, Indiana and was illegally tattooing out of my house when I was given my first chance tattooing in a licensed street shop. My friend Gallo introduced me to Tommy McElroy who at the time was one of the owners of Delta 9 Tattoo Co. on the Southside of Indianapolis and he agreed to bring me in as an apprentice and teach me what I needed to know to be clean and tattoo safely. I went on to work at one other shop in Indiana until I moved back to Columbus, Georgia. Once back in Columbus I ended up working at a shop called Alley Cats on Victory Drive on the Southside where I stayed for a few years until me and the owner had a falling out (we’re cool now tho but that shops no longer there). I ended up tattooing at Skin Traditions just across the water in Phenix City, Alabama for the next 6 years until I decided that I wanted to go into business for myself which is when I opened up Electric Panda Tattoo Company in Columbus, Georgia. October 20th, 2018 was our first day open for business. I’m so glad I made the leap. It’s not always easy running a shop and being a full time artist as well but the freedom and sense of accomplishment I get from my success is priceless and worth the sacrifice. Tattooing really saved my life. My only regret is not per suing tattooing professionally earlier instead of wasting so much time in the streets. But I can’t really say that I regret that cuz those negative experiences honestly make me appreciate what tattooing has done for me and my life that much more!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Not really. Tattoo shops can be weird sometimes. Really cliquey and the rumor mill is wild. It’s a lot of competition in tattooing and sometimes just finding a shop that passes the vibe test is difficult. As a shop owner one of the main struggles is finding reliable artists that want to work, that do good solid tattoos, that can get along and coexist with other artists, that don’t come with a ton of extra baggage, rockstar mentalities, or bad habits.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I focus mainly on Black and Grey Realism/Surrealism, Portraits, and Custom Lettering. I really love doing animal portraits, especially pets. Puppy dogs are probably my favorite. I love working on large projects with tons of textures and small details as well. I think what really sets my work apart from other artists is my attention to the small details, leaving enough open skin to help boost contrast, and my usage of heavy blacks to help hold it all together. A lot of artists want to be the fastest or whatever but I don’t care about that. There’s no such thing as rushed to perfection lol. The tattoo is gonna take however long it has to take.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
The bigger the risk the greater the reward! I’m a risk taker and I love to gamble. I risked it all when I quit my job and opened my shop. I sunk $56k into opening Electric Panda, $30k of that I borrowed from the bank, and I had $26 to my name the first day my shop opened, with a mountain of debt, and bills due that week with no guarantee the business was going to succeed! But thankfully I developed a great clientele and good customer relationships throughout my career that once to health department gave me the ok business boomed from the jump.

Pricing:

• $200/hour
• $1,200 open to close session
• Portraits start at $600 and go up depending on size, location, and detail
• $100 shop minimum

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.electricpandatattoo.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/jbirdtattoos and https://instagram.com/electricpandatattooco
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/james.gannon.9279 and https://facebook.com/ElectricPandaTattooCo
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@electric_pandatattoo.co

Image Credits
Travis Mackey instagram @Indecisive_artist
[email protected]
Took the photos of myself at the Fountain City Tattoo Expo last year. The rest of the photos of my work I took on my phone.