Today we’d like to introduce you to Sharky.
Hi Sharky, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, let’s briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
The journey of how I began tattooing and where I am today is a lengthy and complex trek. Often, to avoid answering this question daily from clients, I’ll say that I was kidnapped by pirates and forced into tattooing to help them fund their wooden leg operation. However, for those inclined to read further, I began tattooing as a means to survival, and the art came later. I had been involved in the East Coast tattoo scene as a collector for several years and had a baseline understanding of tattoo history and a deep appreciation for the craft. However, I never had any desire to tattoo myself. I was content with my lifestyle as a career bartender and musician. One faithful day, I was fired from my bartending job in Manhattan and, later that evening was offered the opportunity to work as the floor girl at True Blue Tattoo in Queens, New York, where I was living at the time. The environment in that shop was truly magical and overwhelmingly intoxicating. The sound of clanking flash rack panels amidst the nervous chatter of clients in the front room. The sound of the buzzing machines, the constant laughter. The smell of green soap. The soft electric hum of the ultrasonic timer. This place was a temple, and I was ready to be its full-time worshipper. And as it goes with being around the influence of something for a long enough time, you eventually seek to be closer to it, to touch it, to be it. So I purchased my first tattoo machines and set up from Wes out on Canal Street at Unimax. I began tattooing friends around the neighborhood.
Eventually, some of my work caught the attention of a man who referred me to John Farag of Inner City Tattoo in Elizabeth, New Jersey, a sister shop of Ron And Daves Tattooing in Long Island. This is where my real mentorship and education began. Here, I learned the history of tattooing and what it truly meant to be a tattooer. I was no longer a worshipper but a priestess in training. After 2 years working in New Jersey and New York, I decided to begin tattooing on the road to broaden my skill and understanding of Traditional Tattooing. Over the next 5 years, I would work with and be mentored by the likes of Gill Montie, Chu Garcia, Vyvyn Lazonga, Shanghai Kate, and Lyle Tuttle. I eventually wandered back to New York and had the honor of having a resident tattooer slot at Pete and Cubos Tattooing, one of the oldest shops in Queens and a bastion of history and tattoo knowledge. Traveling for months at a clip multiple times a year while guesting at shops across America and holding it down at Pete and Cubos, I eventually stumbled upon Classic Tattoo in San Marcos, Texas. After several visits to the shop, I decided to sell all my belongings and move cross country to work with the amazing crew at Classic, owned by tattooer extraordinaire Morgan Egan. It was here that I truly found the space to begin experimenting with the artistic side of my tattooing rather than the more mechanical side I had been used to while working in New York street shops. Tough guys want tough tattoos, and it was difficult to bring that dark art, an esoteric vibe that I like to have translated into my work, to the table in those spaces. It was anything goes at Classic, and I loved it.
Valentine’s Day this year will be its 1st anniversary, and the 28th of February will be my 13th year of tattooing anniversary. I would remain at Classic for almost another 7 years before deciding to venture onto my own and open my private Studio, Lonely Hearts Club. The studio has been overwhelmingly successful, and I am moving into the most solid state of my tattooing that I have ever been in. Most of my clients don’t even tell me what to tattoo; rather, they send a photograph of the part of their body they’d like to have tattooed and tell me to do whatever I see in my mind to put there. So here we are today. And after all the mountains I’ve climbed, I find myself still at the bottom of a new climb. Tattooing is an exercise in endless pursuit.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No road in any map of life is smooth. This road had been paved with heartache, poverty, depression, racism, sexism, and physical pain. But there is balance in life if you open yourself up to the pendulum’s swinging. There is also love, hope, healing, and freedom like none I have ever experienced. The ones who make it in this business the longest are the ones who remain grounded in this reality and don’t split when the going gets tough, and then the tough becomes unbearable.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. What can you tell our readers who might need to be more familiar with what you do?
I specialize in blackwork tattooing, specifically focusing on traditional and ornamentally stylized tattoos. I also love doing lettering, although the demand for it lessens each year with the popularity of typewriter or intentionally sloppy fonts on the rise. I’m most proud of the new studio. Opening Lonely Hearts Club was a decision that didn’t come easily and was a future I had never envisioned. Now that that dream has been realized and manifested, I’ve been laser-focused on how to continue to improve the space and rewrite what the tattoo experience can be like in my special way.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Lonely Hearts Club is located in San Marcos, Texas, so many of my clients travel from San Antonio to get tattooed here. As a metalhead, I love the SA metal scene; you guys know how to bring the pit, lol! Also, some of the most amazing tattooers work out in San Antonio as well, like Mark Dehil at Electric Panther Tattoo ( check him out at IG @markdiehl and get tattooed by him! Tell him Sharky sent you), so I love being near tattooers who keep the traditional tattoo flame alive.
Pricing:
- Shop minium : $300.00
- Hourly Rate: $200.00
Contact Info:
- Instagram: IG @beforethewrathcomes
Image Credits
Sharky
