FLORENCE, S.C. — Jeremicheal Wright is a tattoo artist who owns GBMS tattoo shop and also designs clothing. His work was featured in an Australian Fashion Week collection that won.
Years ago in New York, Wright designed a jacket for an up-and-coming Australian designer, Samantha Saint James. She asked Wright to make a jacket for her and ended up using his piece in her catalog at an Australian Fashion Week competition.
“After winning she found me and told me she used my design in her show,” Wright said. “Just seeing the work from all of those years ago come back and have it in the spotlight is really dope.”
James was given a photoshoot in an Australian magazine showcasing her collection and Wright’s clothes were featured. Wright said James is getting calls from Gucci for collaborations and he is amazed that something like that has happened with his clothing. The sky’s the limit, he said.
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Wright said his artwork is based on positivity and self-expression. His artwork is often based around the mantras of the three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. He puts his spin on each piece of clothing based on the mantras.
Designing clothing was Wright’s first love. Before ever thinking about becoming a tattoo artist, he designed clothes. When he was a young boy, his mother created a barn for him to design clothes because he was doing so much artwork in the house it was causing the home to look like a creative explosion.
“She built the barn in the backyard for me to express myself and be creative freely,” Wright said. “Even before I thought about tattooing, I was doing art on clothes, shoes, jeans and jackets.”
Wright said his neighbors, friends, and people he knew would often wear the clothing he made. That passion from a young boy never stopped and only grew. Wright said it did have a brief moment of stagnation because he was focused on tattooing, but the recent highlight on his talent has pushed him to get back to designing clothes.
Wright’s mother is one of his biggest cheerleaders and she always told him his talent would make him a star, but Wright didn’t believe it, until now. “She always told me to keep doing what I’m doing,” he said. “She always saw the vision.”
Wright ‘s artwork is different, and he does not work within the lines. He is an outside the box creator. He free hands and allows his creativity to take over without much thought. He believes this is what makes him successful.
“From making clothes to tattooing I don’t follow a reference,” Wright said. “At a previous tattoo shop they called me a dangerous tattoo artist because I would get inspired, and the tattoo would come out to be whatever it was meant to be.”
Freely and without restraint is how Wright creates and how he lives. He is a self-described free spirit and encourages others to not be limited by other people’s opinions and be one’s truest self.
Art is what Wright lives for and he is always indulging in it whether it be tattooing, painting his home, or wrapping his cars. His tattoo shop, GBMS (God Bless My Success), takes a lot of time from Wright, and his brother encouraged him to not forget about designing clothes. He said his brother’s advice and the highlight with Australian Fashion Week is a sign to not neglect his talents and to use everything he has.
Wright said he has declared himself rich and created a brand called Rich off Art because he is rich in soul.
“I am rich because I am happy,” Wright said. “It’s not about how much money I make. It’s about freedom and being able to live my life and do what I love.”
Being rich is about being healthy and happy, he said. Wright said he has millionaire friends and people he has encountered with great wealth but has yet to meet someone who is as happy or satisfied with life as he is.
“They are not nearly as happy as I am,” Wright said. “But they do have the money. It’s all about waking up in the morning excited to tackle the day and if you don’t feel that way you have to keep searching.”
For the past 13 years, Wright said, he has been able to freely live life because his art allows him to travel and tattoo various people, some of whom are celebrities, design for people and do what he loves.
“I make my own schedule and get to provide for my family,” Wright said. “I get to spend as much time as I would like with my daughter and those things make me rich.”
Wright and his younger brother are both artists and have a close relationship. They encourage each other to create art and be their best selves. It was Wright’s brother who encouraged him to pick up tattooing and to keep on in his talent of designing clothes.
“My brother would always say you can’t stop doing what you started doing,” Wright said. “And with Samantha believing in the piece I did, it was a sign for me to get back on it.”
“My brother is one of my biggest influences when it comes to art,” he said.
“He was always encouraging me,” Wright said. “When the television show ‘Black Ink’ aired, he put it into the universe that I was capable of doing something like that.”
Shortly after his brother said that Wright began tattooing and opened up a shop. The two hope to create art together that will last a lifetime. They call each other “twin” even though they are two years apart.
Wright hopes his art can inspire the community and the youth to be themselves. He also coaches AAU basketball, and the kids are always intrigued by his anime-wrapped cars and by the creative pieces of clothing he wears. He is proud to push the younger generation to challenge the status quo and beat to their own drum.
“I want the kids to know that there is money in art,” Wright said. “You can make a life out of it, and I want my shop and the way I live my life to be an example.”
God Bless My Success is the name of his tattoo shop and also the name of his other brand. He incorporates God into what he has achieved and said he never imagined that he could live off his art. He worked 13 years at a factory and is now living his dream of living from his talent.
“I didn’t think I would be doing artwork and be able to live off it,’ Wright said. “That still blows me away.”
Wright wants to be a brand that everyone is wearing. He wants to walk down the street and see people wearing his brand, GBMS.
“I know that will happen one day,’ he said. Wright said everything takes time and he wants to meticulously craft the vision of the clothing line before jumping into it.
“I want to take my time and put it out the right way,” he said. “I don’t want it to just be a regular brand. I want it to be very creative and unique. One that stands out in the crowd.” Wright plans to go to Australia to collaborate with James for more clothing designs, but he doesn’t plan to stay there. Wright wants the younger generation to know that you don’t have to leave Florence to be successful.
“You don’t have to go somewhere and uproot your entire life to be successful,” Wright said. “Everything that I have done thus far, I have done from here. My daughter is here, my family is here, and the kids I coach are here. I am not leaving.”
Wright has no formal art training and all of his designs come from the heart and the soul. He had dreams of going to college, Savannah Art and Design in particular, but he did not have the grades to attend, and he pushes his students to do well in school and uses that lesson to teach that talent is good, but if you don’t have the package, you will not be able to go anywhere.
“I thought I would get in because I was talented,” Wright said. “I needed more than talent and that’s what I teach the kids I coach.”
