“There were many moments I was close to giving up.
Getting her various licenses in order was an expensive ordeal, capped by the requirement that she install a handicapped-accessible bathroom in the duplex’s lower unit. Paul’s Grand Avenue, a prosperous and lively commercial district in the historic Summit-Hill Neighborhood. Ultimately, she found what seemed to be an ideal spot for such a live-work arrangement – a handsome, pre-War duplex on St. It was busy and profitable but Zhang yearned to live and work in a more urban environment – some place with a little more bustle, some place that felt a little more like Fuxin. She felt the same way about “tribals” – solid, all black tattoos that require tedious amounts of fill-in inking.Īfter yet another move, Zhang opened a shop in Hudson, Wisconsin, which she ran for six years. Though she didn’t care for the work, Zhang said she would tattoo sports team logos because she needed the money. The business was open to the general public, with lots of walk-ins, so artists had little choice when it came to subject matter. Petersburg, Florida, where she shared a shop with three male artists – an arrangement she ultimately found unsatisfactory.
She got back into tattooing after the family moved to St. After relocating to Austin, Texas, Zhang gave birth to her first child and spent two years as a stay-at-home mom – a period she frankly characterizes as “the best time of my life.”
Her then-husband’s career led to a series of moves around the country.
Still, she was surprised and buoyed when she was named employee of the month. She was hired around Thanksgiving and it wasn’t long before the boss took note of her work ethic amidst the holiday rush. She thought about tattooing but was discouraged by the myriad requirements to get a license in Massachusetts.Įventually, Zhang found work as a sales associate at the retail chain Bath & Body Works.
In Fuxin, where most people rely on mass transit, she didn’t need to know how to drive a car.
(Feel free to suggest a favorite business we should write about, too.) Please use the subject line “Making It in Minnesota.” If you’re an immigrant business owner or entrepreneur, please get in touch with us at. We’d like to share your business story, too. I could have fun with that.”Ībout “Making It in Minnesota”: This ongoing Sahan Journal series will highlight the experiences, challenges, and successes of immigrant business owners-in their own words. I thought: That would be a super cool job. I started to watch how they do it, how they handle the machines. But the more I went, the more curious I got. The first few times, I couldn’t even look. It sounded like the drill at the dentist. “In the beginning, I was scared of the needles and the machines. “I had to go with him to translate and bargain for prices,” Zhang recalled. And because he didn’t speak Chinese, Zhang would tag along on his visits to parlors.
Her future (and now ex) husband liked to get inked in China because Chinese artists work more cheaply than their American counterparts. Zhang’s enthusiasm for body art came later – and almost by accidentĪt the time, she was in her early 20s and had met an American with a thing for tattoos. Drawing, she said, soon became “my hobby and my passion.” While he didn’t offer her instruction, Zhang pored over his library from an early age. She absorbed this from her father, who was talented with watercolors and collected art books. Growing up in Fuxin, a mining and agricultural center in northeast China, Jessie Zhang was always keenly interested in art.