Tattoo Gallery

In 2004 I did my first tattoos in Northern Iraq, where I was a line corpsman with Lima Company 3/24. It breaks about 300 Marine Corps regulations to tattoo in a combat zone, but Marine grunts have a way of making things happen.

I continued tattooing after I got out. I had the privilege of learning under many great tattooers. I never picked an individual style, as seems to be the trend today. I am a proud street shop artist, blue-collar to my core.

The best tattoo I ever did, I did for free. A girl in the local rehab was referred to me by a friend in recovery. Two men raped her when she was only 14 years old, and when they finished assaulting her, they tattooed their initials into her hip. She had spent the next 15 years running from that assault, on the streets and addicted. I covered that ugly tattoo with a beautiful blue heart with angel wings.

I believe tattooing to be a sacred practice, often physically rendering emotional scars for which there are no words. I enjoy all aspects of tattooing, although if there were one thing I would eliminate, it would be no-shows and wasted time. Time is the most valuable invisible, and technically non-existent thing in my life.

When I have it, I dedicate time to covering human trafficking marks for survivors at no cost to them. I hope to find funding for this endeavor someday so that I may devote more of my time to the usage of tattooing to heal others ad to provide them with some closure from the horrors of human trafficking. There are many ways to keep people prisoner, and the hardest prisons to escape have no physical walls. Most are not in some far away super-secret location. They are right there on dating apps and street corners.

May the tattoo gods bless us on this journey.