I have been an artist for as long as I can remember.  When my son grew up and fulfilled his own childhood dream by joining the military and becoming a Green Beret, it didn't take long for him to get his first tattoo, and from the moment the needle hit his skin, he was hooked.  I was really impressed with his tattoo artist, Max Ray, and we often talked about my own desire to get into tattooing.  After a couple of years of back and forth on the subject, my son finally called my bluff and bought me my first tattoo kit for Christmas.  And the rest, as they say, is history!   

  

I quickly discovered that being a traditional artist transitioning to tattooing was a hard learning curve to conquer.  I thought about an internship, but after some discussion with my family and friends, decided that it didn't have much to offer me in terms of knowledge or artistry. I was already producing a level of quality that was well above a lot of tattoo artists in my area.

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It was at this time that my son suggested opening my own shop and even offered to finance it, it was a very humbling experience.  To have him that confident in my abilities meant the world to me!  I told him I wanted to open a different type of shop than the ones I saw in our area and that a traditional "street shop" was not for me, because it shouldn't be about the number of people walking through the door, it should be about the quality of work that walks OUT OF IT! 

 

And in that moment, Creative - Tattoos By Design was born.