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ORIGINS

"not all who
wander are
lost"

The Japanese have a  proverb that says we all wear 3 faces. One is for the world, the 2nd, for close friends & family & the 3rd you never show anyone. Welcome to the 3rd.



I grew up middle class, had a pretty decent childhood. I was blessed with loving parents, a wonderful little sister and things were pretty good growing up. I was a normal kid. I rode bikes, played in the woods, was pretty decent at school. Smooth sailing but as life goes things were bound to shake up.

Our parents split when I was about 12. It took it’s toll on us all as it does on everyone who goes through that. Luckily I had an awesome best friend and we managed to get through things a day at a time. Unfortunately my friend is no longer with us. He killed himself senior year after dealing with an abusive father his entire life, drugs and drinking.

Kick it forward a few years and Mom and Dad are both remarried.
My dad married this lady I never really saw so I was pretty indifferent.
My mom remarried this real piece of work. I mean one of those Jekyll and Hyde types.
Of course things started off well enough. The guy was super charming. All smiles and “Hey there buddy!” To the neighbors then the door would shut and cue Mr. Hyde. The sh*t this guy put us all through was unreal.

At 15 my mom suffered from an aneurysm while arguing with my stepdad.
She was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency brain surgery.
After death missing the shot the first round, mom had about a 15% chance of surviving
the surgery. Years later she described to me what she went through. My uncle who had passed before I was born was there, inviting her to come with him, everyone was waiting for her, all she had to do was go with him.

If you knew my mom you’d know she’s a fighter. Always standing up for the little guy, never one to back down from a bully or do sh*t that she doesn’t want to do.  Hours after surgery she woke up. But she would never be the same. She’s still that same loving, compassionate hippie with a “ kick some ass” button she can hit but It took years of physical and other forms of therapy and lots of dialing in medications to bounce back from the bad years we went through together.

Obviously this kinda sh*t takes a toll on a kid. I’m thrown into this crazy situation of playing peacekeeper between the abusive POS we all endured and the rest of the family, taking care of mom, helping my sister and stepbrother, school, 2 jobs, lacrosse and a serious relationship with someone I deeply cared about and who without I probably wouldn’t be here writing this. I was usually good at putting on a front but the armor always cracks eventually.


 


I started drinking when I was 14-15 years old and looking back, because of course, it’s hindsight that’s 20/20, you knew things were going to go very sideways at some point.
For years it was just messing around and partying with friends, dabbling in whatever but as the story goes things went dark pretty quick. I remember waking up most days and looking in the mirror and hating who was looking back at me.

I first tried to commit suicide when I was 18. I was drunk, completely beat down and keeping so much sh*t inside I felt like I was going to explode. And I did. A lot. So alcohol was this thing that helped turn that off. At least for a while before I would fall down the hole I had inside into this deep depression that drinking just made worse.

I somehow graduated high school. I mean I was a B’s and C’s, occasional A’s kinda student but in my defense, I had a lot of other stuff going on at the time. I wanted to go to University but I had to stick around for a year and attend community college. Sticking around when all your friends and girlfriend are all gone sucks. I ended up getting into some trouble with some friends at 18-19 and got arrested. I got arrested again about a year later (maybe a little less than, I’m 38, practically an old man so get out of my face).

This threw me into the system, bouncing in and out of probation, jail and rehab for several years. I dabbled in things no one should touch and did things I never should have with people I never should’ve been around.  I never really got sober but I did manage to finally get off of probation after several years. I ironically ended up becoming a bartender briefly, tried going back to college for my EMT certification but flopped and when opportunity presented itself I bounced out to Los Angeles with a friend. I was afraid if I stayed I was going to end up dead or back in jail.


I loved LA after I got on my feet. I got into the print supply biz and worked for an awesome company with an amazing boss who ended up becoming like my west coast family. But of course my drinking f***ed that up too.
I had met this girl at that point who I was totally nuts for but we were both pretty nuts, drinking entirely too much and could just never seem to get ourselves together even after 5ish years of bouncing between California, Oregon & Nevada. After a messy breakup, a lot of hurt feelings and a broken heart I went off the deep end and dived so deep into a bottle I smashed through the bottom and lost everything in a matter of months.

After losing my fiance, home, job, and ruining my relationship with my Dad, I ended up packing up and drove back across the U.S. and moved in with my mom. I tried launching a web design company I got off the ground (barely), tried moving to Thailand but that didn't work out so well and I ended up back at mom’s place. Attempted to cash in on the NFT bubble but missed that one. Even though those things never worked out, that’s what started me into learning graphic design and the skills I would need to start BeastGhost INK.

I saw all these brands doing cool stuff and went back to my dream from 2012 to start an apparel company. After watching a couple Youtube videos from people who actually had some success at this game, I started getting some graphics together, real basic sh*t but I thought it was cool at the time. Came up with a name with a good friend of mine’s help. BeastGhost INK.

BeastGhost INK? BeastGhost INK. Within we are all shadow and light. The parts of ourselves we’re not proud of but helped us survive and the traits we try to embody and the goodness we aspire to. The beast and the ghost. The 2 things that when acknowledged and integrated make us whole. When a person has been through the deep recesses, endless chasms and hopeless depths life can take us and you somehow live, It changes you.

You are wholly committed to not being what you were and willing to do anything to become who you know you can be when you lose the shackles of self deprecating thoughts, unhealthy habits and shame. I started this because my OCD, overthinking, study too much everything brain is wired to go 10,000 miles an hour 24/7. This focuses me, gives me an outlet to put out projects that help me make my ripples in this world waiting for them to turn into waves.

 

 


We all need a purpose. And that’s going to be different for all of us. For me it’s trying to make a small difference in this crazy ass world with projects like HOPE I’m doing to raise money in support of Hope For The Day, a non profit out of Chicago that does amazing work around proactive suicide prevention. I’ve lost an uncle, a cousin, and a best friend to suicide along with almost unaliving myself several times over the years. We all know how bad the isolation and deaths of despair have gotten over the past few years, many of you reading may have experienced the lasting effects of this kind of loss.

Looking at how splintered the world is at the moment I’m working on another series called WORLDS APART showcasing how scattered we all feel and the need to come together and if we can’t, to instead move as 1, as individuals, to make positive impacts in our communities. Which inevitably leads to the community being able to move as 1, composed of many but moving towards a single goal of making their immediate world better. And when we all do that, the politics and divisive bullsh*t becomes irrelevant in regards to being able to enact change and help ourselves. And make no doubt about it. No one is coming to save us. We save ourselves or we don’t.

If you’ve made it this far I’m really happy you felt a connection with some part of my story and what BeastGhost INK is about. In life there are deeper meanings within everything and I try to incorporate several layers into each piece in my work. My goal is to put more art and story back into apparel. More variety in styles and projects for mass appeal instead of boxing ourselves up into little categories where we can only do 1 type of thing or style or appeal to just 1 group or fanbase.

Like all of you I’m a complex individual and I always want my work and brand to represent who I am in the moment and show everyone its ok to just be your raw, real self. Sharing your story and owning it is a powerful thing, it puts the ball back in your court and you have the agency to make changes to yourself and that is what real change is. Because you stop talking about it and become it. Think about that. What it would feel like to become what you know deep in your soul you have it in you to be. That’s BeastGhost INK. The triumph of the human spirit, the realization of the power within you, and the will to execute on it.

Thank you for being here. I’m excited to walk this path with you as we help make this world just a little bit better through self actualization and stepping into the power of our true selves.

One Love,

Josh

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