Our story
I spent my whole life chasing cool.
Turns out I had it backwards.
The chase.
Approval from other people. The highest salary. The impressive title. The things nobody else had. For as long as I can remember, that’s what cool meant to me, and I chased it hard.
I believed my worth was something I had to earn and prove. So I made a lot of big decisions from fear: fear of failing, of being different, of falling “behind,” of being “broke.”
The crash.
Somewhere in there, I stopped caring about my work. Not because I didn’t want to. I just couldn’t make myself anymore.
Years of tough remote work, and a life outside of work that started to shine brighter than anything inside it. My marriage, my city, my people, my health: all of it got better. And I still felt like I’d lost myself. That’s not who I am. At 33, the stress nearly killed me.
I'd been waiting for permission that would only come from myself.
The turn.
About a year ago, I started questioning everything: what success looked like to me, what I was willing to accept at work and in life. I watched people around me go after their dreams and felt mine finally bubbling up to the surface.
I’ve wanted to be an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. The people I looked up to most built their own things. But fear of failing, of rejection, of giving up the safety of a corporate job, plus a total lack of clue about what kind of business to start, kept me in place.
So I leaned in, and leaned out, more than once. I worked through a lifetime of beliefs about what achievement and worth meant. Slowly I went from making decisions out of desperation to taking risks I actually believed in.
The sign.
For a while, almost nobody in my life knew I was building this. It felt too vulnerable and too early to say out loud. Meanwhile, I poured myself into another job that didn’t work out. Unfortunately. Fortunately.
That was my sign to go all in.
The art.
I’m not covered head to toe, but I have my share of tattoos, and most of them mean something. Some take me back to a hard year. Some take me back to a great one. A few were just for fun, and I love those just as much.
That’s what I’ve come to understand about tattoos. They can heal. They can connect you to people. They can inspire you. Or they can just make you smile every time you catch one in the mirror.
That’s what I want MUNK to be: art that means something to you, whatever that something is.
WHY "MUNK"
It's what my grandmother called me.
My 'Nanny' called me Munk. She’s the reason I believe I’m capable of more than I’ve let myself be. She never needed anyone’s permission to love what she loved.
THE HOUSE
A bigger canvas for artists.
Art you actually love, for everyone else.
MUNK is a house for original art by working artists, on things you carry every day. Every design is credited to the artist who drew it, and every artist gets a fair cut. Small, numbered runs. Leather first, then everything else that earns it.
Grant Thornbury · Tattoo artist & MUNK Creative Director
My partner in all of it.
Grant is my husband and a working tattoo artist in Chattanooga, TN. He spends his days drawing and tattooing, and his nights helping me turn MUNK into something real. He’s my biggest supporter and my favorite collaborator. MUNK wouldn’t be here without him.
Follow him on IG: @grantjamztattoos
House rule: