There’s a moment that happens when you’ve been doing something long enough.
It’s not loud. It doesn’t come with an announcement. It usually shows up quietly, when you’re not looking for it.
Someone walks through the door—not to book time, not to ask for a favor, not because they need anything. They just want to say hello. To check in. To see how you’re doing.
That’s when it hits you.
Not how far you’ve come, but how far back some people go with you.
Skin Design Spring Mountain just celebrated 12 years last week. 21 years ago we founded the first Skin Design Tattoos in Las Vegas. And Skin Design as a company—just over 27 years.
When you sit with that realization, it really humbles you. The years, the art, the community behind it all. The clients who made it all possible. It’s surreal.
John’s daughter and my youngest, Vanna, close friends of their own
At the start of the New Year, one of my long-time clients, John, flew in from Maui with his daughter to visit us. Not to get tattooed. He just wanted to be there. To see the family, the studio. To catch up.
And standing there, watching him talk with everyone, it reminded me of something I never want to lose sight of:
Some of the most important people in your life aren’t the ones who arrive after you’ve made a name for yourself. After you’ve gotten it together, after it all works.
They’re the ones who stayed when it didn’t.
Before Skin Design Was a Place People Traveled For
When people see the studios now, it’s easy to assume there was a straight line to get here.
There wasn’t.
In 2004, when I first came to Las Vegas, it wasn’t a return or a victory lap. It was a risk stacked on top of other risks.
We had just moved from North Carolina after my dad’s passing. We didn’t have savings. We didn’t have backing. We had enough to get into a place and keep moving, and even that felt thin. I was paying rent in Vegas while still carrying financial weight back east. It felt like I was running in two directions at once, hoping neither one collapsed.
The original Las Vegas tattoo studio was small—around 800 square feet—and even that took time to open. Zoning issues dragged on for months. Approvals stalled. Paperwork piled up.
And every month, rent was still due.
There’s no grace period when you’re building something. The world doesn’t care that you’re waiting on permits. Bills don’t pause while you figure it out.
That first year wasn’t about vision boards or long-term planning. It was about survival. The kind that tightens your chest and sharpens every decision. The kind that changes how you move through the world.
As an ex-con, I knew that this was my new lease on life. Everything was weighing on me. Make or break. I wasn’t going to get another opportunity like this.
Doing Whatever It Took to Stay Afloat
Before the shop opened, I did what I had to do. I didn’t have any other choice.
Every day, I went out looking for people. Walmart. Home Depot. Anywhere I could strike up a conversation. Anyone with tattoos. Anyone who might listen.
And when they did, I brought them home.
I was tattooing out of the house. The kitchen, dining room, wherever there was space. Strangers coming through. Family nearby. No separation between work and life.
Looking back, it’s uncomfortable to think about. At the time, it was necessity.
Reena was about two years old then, my son Justin was ten. Reesa wasn’t even born yet. A completely different chapter of my life. A completely different version of me—one that didn’t feel secure, didn’t feel established, didn’t feel confident most days.
There were months where I was one missed payment away from losing everything. And I knew it.
That kind of pressure doesn’t make you feel heroic. It makes you quiet. It makes you focused. It makes you grateful for anyone willing to trust you in that season.
Blurring the Line Between Client and Family
That’s where people like John made all the difference.
He was one of those clients I brought into my home in the very early days. We connected through music, through friends, through life overlapping the way it sometimes does. I tattooed him at the house. Then he brought friends. Then those friends brought more people.
Me tattooing David in Anthony’s garage in 1997
Word started spreading, slowly. Organically. The only way it really spreads when you don’t have a name yet.
But what mattered more than the referrals was who he was as a person.
John wasn’t someone who showed up once and disappeared. He stayed. He became someone I could trust. Someone who believed in me while everything was still uncertain and nothing was guaranteed.
He became a close friend. A second family.
And he wasn’t alone.
There were others, scattered across different chapters of my life, who showed up early and stayed connected long after they had to.
Sumiko was there back in North Carolina, when the shop was barely 200 square feet. Before expansion. Before recognition. She wasn’t just a client; she became a family friend.
Me and Sumiko when she visited me at the original Skin Design Tattoos Las Vegas location
Years later, seeing her walk into the Vegas studio felt like two timelines touching. Proof that some connections are lifelong.
Healed black and grey realism portrait tattoos I did for Sumiko years ago, back in North Carolina in 1998.
David from OC is another one. I started tattooing him right after I got out of prison in California in 1995, before I had a shop at all. I was tattooing him out of Anthony’s garage in ‘96. No storefront. Nothing flashy. Just work and trust.
Now, years later, David follows me from studio to studio—Orange County to Vegas to Honlulu—to get work done and catch up on life.
From a garage to a shop.
From uncertainty to stability.
From surviving to building.
That doesn’t happen without people willing to believe early.
When Trust Turns Into Opportunity
During those early Vegas years, John continued to show up.
Back in 2006, I did a rib piece on him, a Virgin Mary tattoo. That piece took on a life of its own. It circulated. It was published, won awards. It traveled further than I could have imagined.
People often look at moments like that and label it talent.
But talent doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
That tattoo existed because someone trusted me enough to carry something permanent, at a time when I was still trying to get my footing. Because timing lined up. Because belief came before proof.
That piece helped me get into magazines. It led to opportunities that stacked on top of each other.
One door opens another—but only if someone is willing to open the first one with you.
Keeping the Doors Open Is Harder Than Opening Them
When the shop finally opened, things didn’t suddenly get easier.
I didn’t have a team. I had one employee: Anthony. I knew him from highschool; he knew a version of me I was trying to create a path for myself to get away from.
Me and Anthony in High Point, North Carolina in 2001 in front of Skin Design
When I moved on from tattooing in his garage to a real shop, he moved with me from California to North Carolina and finally to Vegas. Anthony did everything. Front desk. Booking. Phones.
He held the place together while I tried to figure out how to make it sustainable.
And then things got tight. Really tight. I had to let him go.
That kind of decision stays with you. Because it’s not just business. It’s personal. It feels like letting down someone who believed in you when belief was all you had.
The first chance I got to bring him back, I did.
Because remembering who stood with you matters. Because I know that I wouldn’t be the man I am today without them.
Why These Stories Matter Now
As the years stack up and the industry keeps changing, I’ve been thinking more about foundation than momentum.
About the people who were there before there was anything impressive to support.
Clients like John. Like Sumiko. Like David. So many others. People who saw me before there was a brand, before there was validation, before there was evidence it would work.
They didn’t just support my art.
They supported my survival.
And without them, I don’t know where I’d be.
That’s something I carry with me now, especially as I work with younger artists and apprentices. Everyone deserves someone willing to give them a shot when they’re still figuring it out. Someone who sees potential before it’s obvious, before they even fully realize it within themselves.
That’s how communities stay alive.
That’s how industries stay human.
Carrying It Forward
Right now, a lot of people are carrying more than they let on.
The world feels unstable in ways that’s hard to distance yourself from. It’s not just headlines, it’s real life.
There’s a lot of fear going on. Fear of Ai taking our jobs. Fear of ICE taking our friends. There’s so much hate, so much to adapt to. We all feel it.
You feel it in your body. In conversations. In the way people move through their days a little more guarded than they used to.
It raises real questions.
What’s protected?
What’s valued?
What still belongs to the human hand?
Where do I fit in the chaos of it all?
It’s a lot to sit with. And pretending it isn’t heavy doesn’t help anyone.
But here’s what I know.
The things that matter haven’t changed.
People still matter.
Trust still matters.
Showing up still matters.
Only when we come together can we help lift that burden of heaviness.
Everything I’ve built exists because people were willing to believe early, to see the bigger picture. People are at the heart of it all. Friendships. Connection. Community.
They were yesterday, and they will be tomorrow. Despite everything that’s out of our control, that’s the one thing that I know will stay a constant.
People saw my potential, not just as an artist, but in the man I’d one day become. And they helped shape me.
They’re the reason Skin Design Tattoos is what it is today. The reason I have something to pass down to my daughters as artists of their own. That’s not something you outgrow. That’s something you carry forward.
That kind of support creates obligation—not pressure, but purpose.
It means building something that doesn’t forget where it came from. It means creating space for the next generation. It means choosing integrity when shortcuts are available. It means remembering that no one does this alone, no matter how independent the journey looks from the outside.
It’s why I’m committed to giving artists the same chances I was given. Why mentorship matters to me. Why culture matters more than growth for growth’s sake. Why I’ll always protect the human side of this industry.
Because brands come and go. Trends fade. Technology changes everything. The world can try to convince us we’re more different than we are alike.
We have to remind ourselves of what really matters.
All those relationships built in the hard years?
Those are permanent.
That’s the real foundation.
And it’s the part of this journey I intend to honor for the rest of my life.
