Ink stains on the pages of my past.

I started tattooing as a teenager with simple needles and home-made guns. Not exactly how I would recommend people to start in the industry, but for me it managed to work out. After a year or so slinging ink I got my hands on a real gun after my older brother had bought a tattoo kit from Spaulding & Rogers and passed it on to me. Shortly after that I met my future wife and my tattooing took a turn for the better.
Melissa worked at a tattoo studio and brought that type of knowledge with her into the relationship. It wasn't too long after that that we opened our first real shop together. It was called Flesh Etching.
We were both pretty young at the time and the shop did well, but with kids and the realities of life setting in we ended up abandoning shop life. I needed a more stable income than a tattoo shop could give in the small town were we lived. I still got my gun out out for family and friends on occasion, but tattooing now was few and far between.
A few years pass and I meet another artist in my neighborhood, and before long me and him and another tattooist opened a small shop called United Tattooing. We all ran our own businesses under the same roof, and you can imagine how that turned out. Needless to say, the shop closed its doors shortly after opening and the three of us went our separate ways. It was at this time that I sold all of my equipment. I thought I was done.
Quite a few years go by and I find myself re-buying equipment and start tattooing again. It goes good for awhile then a career change...Truck Driving...and the tattooing gets shelved once again.
Now however, with the trucking industry far behind me, I have once again picked up where I left off and have rediscovered my love for tattoo artistry. Unemployed by choice, I now have the time to dedicate myself to the craft that has been with me for so long. The craft that I have set down many times, but always find myself drawn to. No shops or fancy signs this time...just an artist doing what he loves.