09/10/2022
Shawn Brightbill did a mural on the wall of Waste Management in Gilbertsville, where he works. It led him to an article in their company paper & was invited to do another mural in their Telford shop! I'm so proud of my incredibly talented hubby!❤️
Gilbertsville Driver-Artist
Decorates Office, Co-workers
Gilbertsville Commercial Driver Shawn Brightbill used his artistic talent and an airbrush to give WM's Life Critical Rules a singular look and special impact at his site. In his time off, Shawn is a tattoo artist whose subjects sometimes include his co-workers.
A young boy who watched his grandfather paint landscapes decades ago is today making an artful mark on his workplace, and some of his co-workers, at our Gilbertsville Hauling Co.
“I’m just an artist at heart,” Commercial Driver Shawn Brightbill said.
“My grandfather was an artist,” said Shawn who, as a child in the early 1980’s, watched his grandfather, Harry Crawford, set up an easel and canvas and create works of art using oil paints in the backyard.
“After that, I went through high school. My art teacher was a watercolor artist. I started getting into watercolors and I did stage design for our school plays,” Shawn said of how his creative interests grew and developed. As a senior, Shawn spent most of each school day at a local vo-tech school where he studied commercial art. Computers were just beginning to be used in graphics.
“I learned the old ways before learning the new way,” Shawn said. Shawn graduated from high school and attended the Art Institute of Philadelphia for a year before the daily commute got to be too much. Shawn continued his education at a local community college before landing his first design job with the Yellow Pages.
“I was recreating all of Bell Atlantic’s ads to digital,” said Shawn who made the ads the old way, using Exacto knives, blue-line paper, and hot wax. “It was almost like craft hour.” He later worked in design for an envelope company and lost his job in 2002 when electronic billing began to replace mailed invoices.
By this time Shawn was using an airbrush to apply custom designs to the gas tanks of his friends’ motorcycles. Those friends began to encourage Shawn to try his steady hand as a tattoo artist.
“He was a daring soul,” Shawn said of his first subject. “For me it wasn’t bad. The biggest part of it was: it’s skin and you have to know depth control.”
Shawn then turned tattoo artistry into his side gig. He and his wife, Christi, purchased a home with an attached former beauty salon that is now Shawn’s tattoo studio.
Since joining our team in 2003, word has gotten out about Shawn’s talent. He designed and painted tattoos on a number of co-workers and recently helped his site put a special twist on its safety focus by painting a design and our Life Critical Rules on a wall in the driver room where the morning crewouts are conducted. Shawn, sometimes with the help of Senior Operations Specialist Terri Schoenly, painted after his shifts and needed several days to complete the work. The project may have found him a few new customers.
“I think I have a couple of drivers who realized I’m a tattoo artist and I’ll be getting some work from them,” Shawn said.
Gilbertsville tattoo artist and Commercial Driver Shawn Brightbill, center, has designed and applied tattoos for his colleagues Commercial Driver Barry Moyer, left, and Commercial Driver Kevin Diamond. After using his artistry to adorn his site's crewout room with striking safety art, Shawn expects to be tattooing more of his teammates.
