Tiki Tattoo: Inking out a Good Living through Experience

owner Don Howe said that, when he started the business back in 2005, he wanted to create a welcoming and clean atmosphere.

Since then, his store has seen a lot of talented artists and pieces come through (and walk out) his doors. He first started working as a tattoo artist "underground," working wherever he could before he got his apprenticeship. He started learning the trade in 1987, and started working in 1989.

"It was really tough to get an apprenticeship at the time," he said.

It began innocently enough, as his friend had taken him to a tattoo parlor in Pawtucket called Bodyworks (since closed down) to give Howe his birthday present.

"We saw a sign in the window that said 'tattoo artist wanted,' and he said you should apply for that," Howe said. "I said 'I'm all set, I haven't got what it takes, I'm not good enough, I haven't had any formal training. While I was getting tattooed he went into my car and grabbed my portfolio and gave it to the owner of the shop. The owner asked when would be a good time to come in and fill out paperwork to start proceedings to a license to become a professional. I went from there and have been learning ever since."

He worked mainly in shops in Pawtucket and the Massachusetts/Rhode Island border. He then worked at shop called Bulldog in Pawtucket, and learned more from the artist there. After he opened up in Mansfield in 2005.

"I've always been a scribbler," he said. "I don't have any formal art school training; I've always just done what I've done. It just comes out."

Howe said that his shop was different because of the atmosphere it generates. A lot of places, he said, give a bad "vibe," in that they want everyone in the place to appear as though they are in a biker gang, and act accordingly. He said that could make anyone feel a bit intimidated.

"I opened this place here because all the shops that I worked at had been a testosterone-driven atmosphere," he said. "I wanted to open a place where everybody and anybody, no matter what age or walk of life they're from, feels comfortable."

He said there are a lot of middle-aged people come in to his shop as well as the stereotypical crowd.

"Not everybody is an MMA fighter, tough guy or ball room brawler," he said. "It's just everyday moms and dads. You go to some places, you feel like you're going to get your face ripped off if you look at someone the wrong way. We're just a couple of dudes, hanging out doing our thing. We're family people, I'm a father, you know Kerwin, the other [artist] he's a dad. We're all family people, and we didn't want it to be the typical biker type of place."

Howe added that the friendly feel of the shop has attracted some unlikely customers. One day, an 83-year-old woman came into his shop, and asked for a tattoo.

"She just came in and said she wanted a tattoo," he said.

Howe said that she wanted to get a dragonfly tattoo. Howe, surprised by the request but also very curious, asked her why she wanted to get a tattoo at her age.

"Her reply was, verbatim, 'to piss my kids off,'" he said. "She came back and got another one about a month and half later. I asked her how it went with her kids, and she said 'It worked, they think I'm crazy!' I hung out with this old lady, she was so cool. She just had a lot of life in her and she was very funny."

Howe said that while the atmosphere and image of the parlor was important for getting people in the door, it is just as important, if not more so, to keep a clean establishment.

"The level of cleanliness has to be at the very top," he said. "Not that I'd recommend licking the floor, but you could eat off the floor in here."

To see some samples of Don and Kerwin's work, check out the photo gallery to the right, or go to their Web site listed below.