If you ask JonBoy what his “big break” was, he’ll tell you it was the moment he found God and surrendered himself to his will. Everyone else might say it was the day he found Hailey Baldwin
Photo: Courtesy of the Moxy Hotel. If you ask the tattoo artist Jonathan “JonBoy” Valena what his “big break” was, he’ll tell you it was the moment he found God and surrendered himself to his will. More secular observers, however, might say it was the day he found Hailey Baldwin, now Hailey Bieber.
Jenner’s first tattoo was a microscopic, almost-invisible white dot on her middle finger. “But that’s what blew me up,” JonBoy said, still shaking his head in disbelief. He’s since gained over half a million Instagram followers and become the go-to guy for teeny-tiny tattoos inscribed with impossibly fine lines — a technique that was only perfected in the last decade as equipment has gotten more precise.
For image-conscious people like Baldwin, who can point at their face and honestly call it the “money-maker,” a discreet tattoo makes sense. “They’re easy to wear and easy to hide,” JonBoy explained. Jenner, for example, has “Meow” on the inside of her lower lip. K-Pop artists have come to JonBoy for underground sessions, although he can’t name names. Their tattoos are perhaps the one part of their body they feel are their own.
Art was JonBoy’s outlet early in life. He had a tumultuous childhood as a raver-kid on the North Side of Chicago, where he was bullied at school and joined a skate crew called the “Skatanic Mafia.” At the age of 17, he overdosed on a bad combination of drugs — a near death experience that gave him a direct line to God. “You’re either going to die on this couch and not know me, and burn in Hell, or you can turn your life around and live for me,” God told JonBoy, as he remembers it.
“When I tattooed them together, they’d just gotten back together, and I was like, ‘Justin, you know I’ve been talking to your girl about you,’” JonBoy said. “He felt really happy about it. I remember praying for both of them before I tattooed them, and then before they left, Justin prayed for me. It was so special. I continue to pray for them. I remember Hailey being like, ‘Pray for us.’”
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