Steve Beasley

Steve has been tattooing for 15 years. He started tattooing by accident. He went into a shop to receive a tattoo, but couldn’t due to the fact the shop was being renovated. After speaking with the artists, he left the shop with an apprenticeship.

He would apprentice on his days off from his normal job. Steve started with tattooing script and lettering. In his early tattooing days, he would only tattoo lettering with strawberries or cherries. He doesn’t specialize in any particular style because he wanted to stay versatile. His clients receive his services for mostly black and grey work. Steve enjoys doing any and every style of tattooing.

Steve loves to tattoo and says he’s never had a better job. He looks forwards to going to work every day. He gets to meet cool new people and does something different every day.

“What new adventure we got today?”

Have you ever been called a bad influence as a tattoo artist?

No... not to my face; if I can say that, I’m pretty sure there have been parents and people especially in the south. Tattooing is fairly new down here, so I’m sure there’s a lot of being called a bad influence you know, but never to my face.

Have you ever had a young child (that wasn’t your own) think your career was cool and want to do what you do?

Not necessarily where they say they want to tattoo someday, but they are super interested in what we do, there’s a lot of questions, anytime we go out in public, we’re kind of like a walking billboard, you know? So people do inquire, but kids for sure, our kids friends, especially when they were younger they always had questions and always were interested.

What is your usual reaction to them? What do you say to them?

I usually just answer their questions, I don’t wanna say ‘hey come over here and be a tattoo artist’–I don’t ever tell them ‘oh you don’t want to do this because here’s the bad parts’ when I say that, I’m not saying there’s a lot of bad parts to tattooing, but it’s not easy to get into it, it definitely is a struggle. It’s trials and tribulations to make it through, it’s not a walk in the park or not a cakewalk to be a tattoo artist and I make sure I let them know that. Don’t get into it thinking you’re just going to breeze through, you know, it’s not a rockstar lifestyle, not for me anyway

What is the earliest memory you have interacting with me?

In the tattoo shop. Little Syd running around the tattoo shop and family settings, you know what I mean, because in a tattoo shop, you are a family. Everybody’s family is everybody else’s family. We kinda all become one huge family. Yeah, that’s my earliest memory of you being little coming into the tattoo shop.

What was it like having me around as a small child?

No different, we all brought our kids to the shop, we would sit you guys down in front of the computer, give you pencil and paper, let you draw, I guess it was just as normal for me to have you guys as kids at the shop as it was for you guys growing up in the tattoo shop, it’s normal for you guys, for other kids not so much, you were good, you’re quiet, you’re a good kid” – “okay for the record, I didn’t tell him to say that

Do you have any specific moments you remember that you were a bigger influence on someone?

Well that’s the hope, not necessarily for them to become a tattoo artist, but–I feel like if you’ve given someone not only a good tattoo, but a good experience while they’re getting tattooed and they come back, then yeah, you’ve influenced them to get more tattoos. There has been people that I know that I have tattooed that have become tattoo artists, so yeah I guess, I never thought about it like that before, I’m just trying to go to work and do cool tattoos, you know–I’ve never thought about it that deeply before

Do you think you have a good influence on the people around you?

I think so, I don’t try to influence people to do bad things, I guess it’s up to perspective to who’s viewing it, some people may think you’re a bad influence because a lot of people don’t agree with tattoos or people who do tattoos, you’re marking people up, you know, if I meet you and you’re walking away and I’ve influenced you in a good way–awesome–if I’ve influenced you in a bad way, I think that’s more of their problem, not mine, you know–sucks to suck–but I don’t think I influence anyone negatively, I try not to, I try to be positive and have a positive outlook on everything–I feel like I’ve influenced positively or I try to