Johany “Jojo Bubbles” Howard has been a successful artist in Baton Rouge for the past 13 years. She was born in Nicaragua and grew up in a little town down the bayou. She attended the University in 2004 and received a degree in wildlife ecology management. Her life has been a mixture of surprises, but she has enjoyed every bit of it. She had dreams of possibly working as a ranger or for a wildlife fishery, but besides the outdoors, art was always a passion of hers.
“I still graduated from school,” Howard said, “but I realized I loved being in the shop more than anything.”
Starting your own business can be a difficult thing to do, especially for a piercer/tattoo artist. Howard has been able to accomplish this and still keep a large clientele. She was ready to dive into bigger things and do more side projects.
“Being on my own, I have the opportunity and time to give to those little seeds basically that I want to grow,” Howard said.
She was not sure what she wanted to do at first, so she started working at a shop to pay for bills and school. Howard started piercing in 2005 and slowly started introducing herself into the tattoo industry in 2007. She worked with three different businesses and gained a lot of experience in what she now does today.
“I loved working with everyone at the different shops because I learned something from every single person and it’s formed me into who I am,” Howard said.
After all her anxiety and fears, she realized she wanted tattooing and piercing to be a part of her life for a long time. She loves going to work and meeting with her clients. Whether she is doing a piercing or a tattoo, she said it is always fun for her.
“Every day I go to work, it’s pretty interesting,” Howard said. “It’s never the same thing and you meet so many different types of people.”
On Howard’s social media, specifically Instagram, she includes these special hashtags, like #earporn, #inhale and #exhale. The hashtags exhibit her art and creative process. She figured she would promote what she actually tells her clients, which is a genuine, enticing form of advertisement.
Howard started apprenticing in 2004, and she has followed most of her mentors advice in the beginning.
“When I first started piercing, I was taught you have to teach your client how to inhale and exhale three to four times before you actually pierce them.” Howard said.
She realized after constantly watching this process the person would be so terrified and had such a higher rate of being anxious or even worse passing out.
“When I was more comfortable with the process I would tell my clients to take a deep inhale and on the exhale I’d pierce them,” Howard said
Many clients love Howard because of her organic, genuine personality. Regular client Sean Wilson said, “Some people like to go to their therapists, I like to go to my tattoo artist.Howard takes her profession past just being a tattoo artist or piercer — she listens to her clients and their everyday problems. Whenever they have a problem, she is there to listen and comfort them.
“A lot of my clients open up about a lot of different things, like pent up family stuff, and I’m just their soundboard,” Howard said. “When a client chooses you to put paint on them, you’ve impacted them, and they trust you.”
As an artist, Howard does more than just work in the shop. She is a painter, a sculptor and even a cosmetic makeup artist. At her shop, Bubble Art Body Studio — or as she likes to call it, “my little studio of my bubbly art” — she considers it the home of all her art. She has another room just for painting, sewing and growing plants.
“I want to grow and I’m not only a tattoo artist or a piercer, I’m an artist,” Howard said.