Ste - Stourbridge Tattoo Studio
Tattooing has always fascinated me since I was old enough to know what a tattoo was. I've always been artistic due to my dad who was always drawing and painting so it sort of brushed off onto me. It's constantly been in my heart since I was a child to be a tattoo artist. My journey into tattooing began around the age of 13, when my cousin Sharnie mentioned to her dad Kevin that I was very artistic and had talked to her about persuing tattooing as a career. She took a handful of my sketches for him to inspect, being happy with what he saw he gave me an amazing opportunity to work for his company BodyArt Studios. I started at the Dudley studio an ultra modern tattoo studio managed by Carl Zambra. After spending countless Saturdays in the studio watching and learning I eventually left school to work there as an apprentice for 6 months.
My apprenticeship was then furthered when Andy Morris a multi-international award winning tattoo artist invited me to his studio Native Ink in Sedgley. Not being in the trade very long ment Andy had to teach me the way a studio works, how to deal with customers, how to keep a clean sterile studio, what cross contamination was and how to avoid it, anything and everything I needed to know I learnt from him. Being such an incredible artist I watched him tattoo all day everyday trying to figure out how he could make a tattoo so realistic, it still blows my mind seeing him work today.
Lots of my time was spent tattooing friends and family under Andy's guidance. It is not an easy task to perform a tattoo, I found it incredibly hard and frustrating but determination and perserverance paid off and I was eventually able to tattoo the public. My skills and confidence rapidly grew, I was taking in every little bit of information I could from Andy. As time ticked on I was tattooing hundreds of people and was offered the chance to work in BodyArt's new studio in Stourbridge. It's an ultra modern, state of the art tattoo studio equipped with top equipment and 2 amazing artists. These days you can find me at the tattoo studio 5 days a week, working alongside John Tilt and Sammie Cash.
I am very grateful for being given the opportunity to be a tattoo artist. I owe a lot to a handful of people who have helped me get to where I am now.