FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Eight months ago, Colorado native Donte Hall started following the TikTok account of Fayetteville tattoo artist Jonathan Dump. Hall was so captivated by Dump’s skill, he decided he wanted to get tattooed by him, even if that meant flying to Fayetteville.
Hall got a tattoo of two scenes from the anime “Black Clover” on his bicep. He said last week that he plans to come back in July for more artwork.
Dump, 27, isn’t a stranger to people coming from different parts of the country to be tattooed by him.
“I get a couple from California every now and then, people from New York,” he said last week. “The day after (Donte) got tattooed, a girl drove like almost 11 hours from the other side of Tennessee.”
Even though his TikTok has more than 600,000 followers, Dump said, people have traveled before to get work done by him after seeing his art on his Instagram account, which has more than 80,000 followers.
Dump created his TikTok account, artofjondump, around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We got shut down and everything, were quarantined and figured this was a better way to show my brand, get out there more, and I started producing content,” he said. “I think my first week on TikTok, I grew it up to like 6,000 followers or something like that.”
Some of his portrait tattoos have gained social media attention from hip-hop artists such as Lil Nas X and Megan Thee Stallion.
Dump said he likes to be well-rounded, but when it comes to specializing in something, he would say portraits and color work. His portraits are striking for their vivid detail and strong lines.
Dump, a Fayetteville native and Douglas Byrd High School graduate, said he’s always been artistic.
“Even as a kid, I would always doodle on my notes, doodle on tests and stuff like that,” he said. “I was probably 14 or 15 when I started being interested in tattoos.
“When I brought it up to my mom that I wanted to be a tattoo artist and she was really against it. So, the rebellious part of me was like, I’m going to do it, and I just gained a love for it.”
Dump has been at Best of Ink Fayetteville on Skibo Road since October 2019. Before that he worked at New Addiction on Raeford Road.
As demand for Dump grows, his books are closed until June.
“If I don’t close my books, I’ll probably be booked out one to two years,” he said. “I know when I opened my books last time, I had a line (of clients) going from the front of the shop wrapped around the sidewalk out to the road.”
In addition to his artwork, Dump also posts on his TikTok account about positivity.
“I am a firm believer of what goes around, comes around,” he said. “I worry about myself, I stick to what I believe in, I try not spread negativity. I hope that everybody else follows suit.”