About Da' Boss....

My name is Abel

I didn't even want to be a tattoo artist before the opportunity came up. My background was in fine art and I learned all about brush painting, abstract art, and figure drawing nude models.

But it ain't easy to get by on an art degree. I needed a trade to channel my abilities into. Luckily, an art school comrade named Brent Evans (already a tattoo artist at the time) introduced me to my current career path.

I started my tattoo apprenticeship in 1998 under a guy named Steve Underwood but whom was known as "Lil Smitty".  Lil Smitty learned from an ol' timer named "Smitty". Brent Evans became my tattoo "big brother".

I'm not gna bore you with all the things that did and did not go my way since I walked into Lil Smitty's shop and smelled the scent of green soap for the first time. All you gotta know is that I paid my share of dues and after all this time opened my own shop this year of 2016. Oddly enough, I wasn't even trying to do THHHHAT.

After 2 unsatisfying stints at tattoo shops, all I wanted to do was buy a nice house, paint cool pictures and tattoo privately. I had long been working independently between shops anyhow but thanks to the banking industry, this nice house was not to be. My bank WAS, however, willing to finance my alternate idea: Ink Bar Tattoo.

So what do you do when you have no choice but to do what you didn't really plan to do to begin with? In my case, I decided to go for the A+. I figured that since I spend a whole helluva lot of time doin' ink and drawing it up for people, I may as well get very comfortable and happy about where I'm gna do it at next.

So I figured that for starters, my place was going to be bigger and more comfortable than the typical cost-efficient but cramped tat shop. It was going to have individual, private work stations so people aren't gettin' stared at during their sessions. It was gna be run by ME--an actual tattoo artist--instead of by any somebody who hires somebody ELSE to do do all the hard stuff for him. It was going to be a place that artists enjoy working AT and which collectors enjoy being IN...and it was definitely NOT going to have snotty, snobbish, irresponsible, price-gouging artists who are out to hustle people.

I think I've got things going the way I wanted. Now if I can just find some time to make something nice for MYSELF!