owning a business- a tattoo parlor.

The witch tattoos the wizard

I have been wanting to write about owning the tattoo shop for awhile now but that pretty much goes for all the other blogs for that matter too...I find myself talking to people about what it is like to own a business- my own business and some of the time others point out how cool it must be to own your own thing! But then I always counter with, I may get to do my own thing, but if I take time off, I don't get paid and I pay out of pocket for my own medical and dental, etc. And that is just a quickie of some things that are not the cool parts about owning my own business. Let's start from the beginning!
First, just to put it out there tattooing and owning a business is really f-ing hard. It takes so much time, effort, energy, will power, discipline, skill, money (a lot), determination, and strength and guts while I'm at it.
When I was pondering building my own shop it was because the final 3rd shop that went out of business that I worked at went under and I was so tired of it, I said F it! I am going to take matters in my own hands- besides that I have always wanted my own shop. That is when I decided to open Valkyrie. I choose Penngrove because I believed that Penngrove was the last town that could hold a tattoo shop around here, all the other towns are saturated with tattoo shops and tattooers. But I also love this little town and it's laid back feel here. So that was a no brainer but here comes the hard part- setting up all the accounts with companies that you have to use for maintaining a business. It ends up being like 20 companies maybe even more. Bank accounts, merchant services, utilities, tattoo supplies, shop equipment and then the health department stuff. They require a lot of money and follow thru- things they want you to do to be legal. It's annoying but complying is easy. You just do it.

Since I was 9 years old I have wanted to be an artist when I grew up.

Having an arty brain is one thing but then you must have a savy business owner side to bring it together. Which is actually pretty hard. Especially in the field of tattooing. Tattooing alone is a full job in itself. I guess I hear often how so and so wants to tattoo or own a shop and I wonder if they know the reality of it. It is a really hard business to make it in. It takes a certain kind of personality and mentality. I have found that since I have owned the shop my leadership skills have gotten better and the will and desire to lead, stronger. I believe in my crew and want them to succeed. I believe all of our work contributes to the shop as a whole and it is extremely important for all of us to be on the same page otherwise the shop does not move forward. I often refer to the shop as a ship. We all have an oar and we are all headed to the same destination. Which is hopefully progression in our art as individuals and elevating the shop. That is what propels the ship of a shop forward.

I do believe this is one of my first self portraits.