Jess Chen loves tattoos. Getting them, giving them, coming up with them, covering them. They are her life’s work. But during the pandemic, Jess couldn’t tattoo anyone for 16 months, an eternity for an artist not to be able to use their creative outlet. So, she found new outlets. Jess honed her skills in making ceramics. Jess picked up yoga. Jess exercised more. Jess designed clothing for The Hundreds and other brands.

This wasn’t her first rodeo working with us, though. Back in the day, when The Hundreds had a sister brand for women called Jennifer USA, Bobby tapped Jess Chen to design a capsule collection of timeless floral prints that still look incredible today.

Now, as Jess Chen returns to tattooing after a long hiatus, with a slew of new skills under her belt, we go full circle with the talented Toronto artist. As part of The Hundreds Spring 2022 collection, we asked Jess to design a new capsule, one that reflected where she was at now, and we think you’re really going to love it.

As part of the collaboration, Jess also handcrafted five one-of-a-kind ceramic pieces that accompany the collection, and all of them will be available on her website at the same time our Spring collection drops.

I caught up with Jess to discuss the only tattoo she ever hated, her newfound love of pottery-making, and how orchids look like aliens.

DUKE LONDON: Hey Jess, how are you doing?

JESS CHEN: Good. I have a day off, which I really needed. I recently got a big cover-up tattoo on my arm and it’s healing so slow. And it’s so scabby. So, I just needed the rest day. It’s nasty.

How long have you been waiting to cover it up?

Three years, I made sure I wanted to do this because it’s obviously a big commitment. But I knew when I got the initial tattoo, I looked at it, and I’m like, I’m gonna cover this shit up. Like, I don’t like it. So I waited the three years. And then I finally did the first session. And I have one more next week. And then I’ll be done.

Is that the first time you’ve covered one up?

Yes. Every single time I’ve ever gotten a tattoo, I’m like, “Oh, that’s sick. It’s supposed to be there.” I just have this feeling that was always supposed to be there. But for this one, I knew immediately that I hated it.

I’m just kind of interested in this, from the perspective of a tattoo artist getting a tattoo they don’t like. Was it pretty close to your initial concept or idea of it, or it was just kind of in the execution of it that was off?

It was. I’ve worked with this artist before, he’s done so many tattoos on my body. He’s incredible. And he’s created literal masterpieces. So I told him I wanted a black background for this piece on my arm. And so we came up with this idea where it would be a black background, and then the flowers would be lined and not colored. So the skin would be the negative space. Then we did the linework, it healed, everything was fine. I come in for the second session and he was like, “We’re not doing the black background. We’re just going to color it with color.” And at that point, it was not what I wanted, but I just trust the artist, like I give them full control. Even though that’s not what I wanted, I trust you. Let’s do it. He did it. I think it just didn’t translate how I wanted, the color. I call it Cheeto orange. It’s not the most flattering orange color, especially on my skin tone. I’m yellow tone. So yeah, it just didn’t work out.

So you said this artist has worked a lot on you. How much research do you put in before you find a new artist that you let work on you?

I’m super picky, super picky. I follow the artists I like for at least six months, every day looking at their stuff, looking at their stories, just making sure I understand how they work and how their pieces heal and understand their style. Because sometimes you can’t really gauge what art is like just by looking at a couple of portfolio pieces, you really need to follow their Instagram, assuming that they update it pretty frequently. You get a good sense of who they are.

How do you ease the worries of potential clients on your end? Do people give you full creative control for the most part? And do you take liberty with that and make adjustments to their concepts? How does that work?

Yeah, I’m honestly so lucky. I work with clients who literally let me do whatever I want. But at the end of the day, I personally like direction still, like I want to know what you like, I want to know what colors you like, I want to know if you want black and gray. I want to know if you’d like mostly lines or shading, I don’t want to just come up with something and just put it on anybody. I still want a bit of a collaboration between us. It’s super important to me that a client feels 110% about the design. But normally what I do is my client contacts me with a concept and then I give them options. So they come in and we figure out the design together. I usually freehand it on their body so we really work together and figure out the placement and I go over what they’re comfortable with and what I think will look good. So it’s super collaborative how I work.

Two-plus years deep into COVID, how has that changed the dynamic in a tattoo environment?

I think in terms of a more technical sense, it hasn’t changed anything. I am always super diligent about cleaning. And I guess the only difference is I wear a mask, but I actually really like it. I think it’s an extra layer of protection. Even just for ink splatter. So the mask protects you from that. But in terms of my clients wanting tattoos, I find people want more tattoos because they’ve just been sitting in their homes, looking at their bodies and reflecting. I think some just want to take the jump and get their first tattoos or maybe some want to add more to their collection. So I find people are definitely itching for more right now.

I’m guessing with the style of tattoo you do, people haven’t been outside as much and they’re eager to bring the outside inside with them.

Yeah, that’s so true. That’s so true.

What’s it like designing for clothing versus freehanding your art on a body, as far as placement and how it lays on someone? Is it kind of a similar process?

I think of it as honestly completely identical. Obviously, there are a lot of restraints for clothing, like you can’t really go over certain areas, like a seam. But I see it exactly the same. Like when I design for clothes, I think about how I want to wear my image on the body. And that’s essentially the same process as tattooing.

And for people that have been fans of The Hundreds for a long time, this isn’t actually your first project with us. You did a capsule for Jennifer back in the day.

Yeah, a while ago, that was really fun.

It was so cool. And I think there are so many fans of The Hundreds now, with our NFT project especially, that may not know about that brand, Jennifer. And I hope that this collection makes them go back and maybe find some of those pieces on the secondary market. But what was that like working on back then? And how did your relationship with Bobby start?

I think Bobby reached out to me back then. I think I might have tattooed somebody who was working for him, I can’t remember the connection. But essentially, he reached out to me and wanted to collaborate. And then we did the Jennifer USA collaboration, which was wild. I love that print. It’s so loud and out there. And then he reached out again recently to do this most recent collaboration. And I mean, I knew I wanted to do something similar but different. Obviously, my forte is floral. So I knew I wanted to make a floral pattern, but I didn’t want to do something simple like a rose or tulip. So I kind of decided on the orchid. And orchids are crazy. I think there are like 25,000 different species of orchids. There are so many different varieties and shapes and textures you can work with. And also another thing about the orchid that I found super fascinating was, flowers typically have radial symmetry, so like a sunflower or a daisy. But orchids are bilateral. So if you literally cut it in half, and you reflect it, it’s an exact copy. So it’s very similar to a human face, which I think is why we are super attracted to orchids in the first place. But at the end of the day, they’re just super weird, they’re quirky, they’re a little odd. They’re Extra-Terrestrial and sometimes they look like little fairies. So I was just captivated by that imagery. And I knew immediately that’s what I wanted to do for the new collab.

How did you get started making ceramics?

During the pandemic, obviously, we were shut down for so long. I wasn’t tattooing for about 16 months in total. It was a long time. I started playing around with ceramics, and I find that as a blessing in disguise because I love that medium. And I use it to my advantage to just have that extra time. So yeah, it was pretty bad. But I made the best of it for sure. I had done a course before the pandemic, like an eight-week intensive. But I didn’t take it too seriously. It was just here and there. But the moment we shut down, I bought a kiln, I bought a wheel and I told myself, “You’re committed to this because what else are you going to do?” So I really started honing my skills during the lockdown.

Did you pick up any other hobbies in the 16 months you couldn’t tattoo?

I started doing a lot of yoga, just inside. I feel like that really helped my mental health and I started exercising more, surprisingly. And I bought a lot of plants, I have so many plants now.

Have your newfound art forms like ceramics affected your other art in any way, like how you do tattoos? You picked up a whole bunch of new plants, have any of them found their way into tattoos or your art?

Yeah, and I think what ceramic does for my practice, especially in relation to tattoos is, it gives me so much balance. Because with tattoos, it’s a lot of interacting with people, obviously. A huge part of our job is hosting people and making them feel comfortable, taking care of people, and talking to people. And obviously, as an artist, that can take a lot out of you, especially when you do it on a daily basis. It is literally the best job in the world. But I find when you push yourself, and you work a little bit too much, you get really burnt out. So I find ceramics is that perfect balance for me. It’s a quiet type of practice. It’s just me and the clay or whatever you’re working on, you can take your time, and you don’t have to talk to the clay, you can just be by yourself and focus on your practice. And I think that’s the key with everything is just having a good balance of the two. And so that’s what ceramics gave me. And now I’m trying to push that into more of my schedule, so I can have a good balance of ceramics slash me-time, and then time devoted for my clients.