How did you get your start tattooing?
I’m a lifelong doodler. I spent most of my 20’s playing in bands and making art for other bands. When I was a teenager, I became interested in tattoos and tattoo imagery. I was mystified by the indelible, Mark ‘The Black Ink Mercurial’ (aka the thorn on the rose). I got tattooed on my 18th birthday and then more and more as I could afford it. When I moved back to Atlanta in 2010, my good friend Hank Pratt was working the desk at Only You Tattoo, which had been opened about a year prior by Danielle Distefano & Matt Greenhalgh. I started getting tattooed by Charles Chatov a lot. We would nerd out about Raymond Pettibon and skate. He could play the J Mascis intro song from ‘Memory Screen.
When Hank started tattooing in 2016, they needed someone to fill his position at the desk. I heeded the call right away and started what felt like the next day. I worked the desk and did everything I could to help out. It felt good to work for people making something so cool happen on a daily basis. All the while, I was coming home super charged by the billions of designs on the walls and I was drawing every night - trying to keep it under my hat as much as I could. After four years of working the desk, Matt and Danielle offered me the opportunity to apprentice. I started making needles, tracing the masters of the past and learning the deeper mysteries of the electromagnetic art of the tattoo.
Where does the inspiration for all of your funky creatures and scenes stem from?
That may come from my insatiable desire to make everything funny.
What aspect of tattooing do you feel most comfortable with?
That’s a tough question. I really enjoy adding a tattoo to someones collection and thinking about the interplay on the skin with what they have and what I may be adding to the narrative.
What techniques are you still working on developing?
All of them. All the time. Constantly learning.
What are the best items to forage for when you’re making a flower mask?
I get so charged up when I find a leaf or an acorn that resembles a nose or eyes. It becomes a fun scavenger hunt to find a leaf that mimics the first one. Luckily, nature is a perfect printer of beautiful, perfect, seamless repetitions.
If you were to get a tattoo from another tattooer from Only You, who would you choose?
I’ve been tattooed by almost everyone at the shop. One of the perks of the job I reckon. I still need to collect one from Ashton Anderson and Austin Archer!
How does skateboarding influence your art/lifestyle in general?
It’s been said before, but skateboarding really changed the way I saw the world. It gave me the tools to look at obstacles as play or how I could transform and interact with everyday architecture as a playground. Not only that, but the determination it takes to hone your ability through repetition and painful failure makes freaks of us all. A special breed!
Photo: Zach Mckay
Originally published in Issue 5 - January 2025