Tattoos By Raven

06/02/2026

Mark is taking on a challenge that most people would walk away from.

The bones of this old building are beautiful, but every inch of that ceiling has its own opinion. Peeling paint, layers of history, awkward corners, and more detail than you notice until you’re standing on scaffolding staring at it for hours.

I love the industrial aesthetic. The exposed beams, brick, and century-old character are part of what makes this space special. But when you’re spending hours in a chair getting your chest drilled on, “interesting” isn’t enough. It also has to feel clean, comfortable, and welcoming.

There’s still a long way to go, but it’s starting to come together.

I don’t know what I’d do without the extra help.

06/02/2026

These old ceilings came with a little more “patina” than we were after.

The building is over 100 years old, and this studio has seen a lot of history. Rumor has it this was the room where Kurt Cobain did his last photo shoot. Kalamazoo Candle Company started here.

What nobody mentioned was the ceiling.

Turns out it’s oil-based paint. That means scraping. Then primer. Then paint. Then more paint.

The frustrating part is that I can’t do much of the heavy work myself. If I trash my shoulders, I can’t tattoo, and that defeats the whole purpose.

So I’m helping where I can, hauling things, making decisions, fetching supplies, cleaning up, and trying to stay out of the way of people who are much better suited to standing on scaffolds all day.

I don’t know what I’d do without the extra help. This move is becoming a reminder that sometimes building something isn’t about doing every job yourself. Sometimes it’s about having good people around when the job is bigger than one person.

One flake at a time. We’re getting there.

06/01/2026

Well… it’s official.

After 28 years in Otsego, I’ve signed the lease on a new studio space at Park Trades Center in Kalamazoo.

The Otsego shop has been my home for nearly half my life. It’s where I’ve built a business, made friends, watched families grow up, and created thousands of tattoos. Leaving that space isn’t something I take lightly.

At the same time, this move feels like the right next chapter.

For the last several years, Park Trades has become an important part of my life. It gave me a place to make art, build strange things, paint murals, collect shop goblins, and rediscover parts of myself that had been buried under deadlines and responsibilities. Now the tattoo shop gets to join that creative community.

Studio 309 is still a work in progress. There will be paint, construction, problem-solving, and probably a few moments where I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. But there will also be sunlight, room to grow, and opportunities I couldn’t have imagined when I first opened my doors in 1997.

I’m grateful to everyone who has trusted me with their stories over the last 35 years. You’re the reason this adventure continues.

More details, move dates, and open house information will follow as we get settled.

For now, I’m just excited, a little terrified, and ready to build something new.

06/01/2026

It wasn’t just today. The whole weekend felt a little strange.

A no-call, no-show here. A cancellation there. Plans shifting around. The sort of weekend that leaves more empty space than expected.

Martha stopped by to keep me company. We talked about this and that, and eventually she gave me a short list of things she’d still like to see worked into her leg piece.

We’ve been building this fantasy world together for a while now. The goal has never been to cram everything in. It’s to create a scene where you keep discovering things.

You notice the crystals.

Then the mushrooms.

Then the cat.

Then the bat wings.

Then a tiny skull hiding where you didn’t expect it.

One thing leads to another.

There’s a little storytelling in it, a little surprise, and a little humor too.

So we turned the music up just a hair and started exploring. Looking for places where those last few ideas could live.

By the end of the afternoon we’d woven a little more magic into the scene.

I think that’s one of the reasons I love projects like this. They’re never really about a single image. They’re about building a world that’s fun to visit, even after you’ve looked at it a hundred times.

06/01/2026

We’ve worked together before, turning her tattooed limbs into some of her favorite parts of herself.

During the session she said something that made me reconsider a long-held assumption.
I’ve often viewed pinups and idealized figures with some skepticism. It seemed possible that they encouraged people to measure themselves against an impossible standard.

But listening to her, I realized I might have been missing another perspective.

The strong jaw, flowing hair, perfect posture, tiny waist—none of it was meant to be a statement about what she should be. The idea of carrying that image with her made her happy.

Maybe that’s enough.

Sometimes art isn’t a demand. Sometimes it’s a daydream. A favorite character. A version of beauty that speaks to us.

Watching her connect with the piece reminded me that not every idealized image is about feeling less. Sometimes it’s simply about surrounding yourself with something you love.

05/31/2026

05/30/2026

A little more added to the collection today.

This one has been growing piece by piece—skulls, geometry, cityscapes, flowing blackwork, and ideas gathered over time. Some tattoos are built around a single concept. Others become a map of where you’ve been and what caught your attention along the way.

Today we added another chapter and pushed it a little further down the road.

No rush. Just steady progress.

05/30/2026

A little more shading added to this sleeve today.

The last couple of months have been a big push to bring all the different pieces together. What started as separate tattoos is slowly becoming a single story—one section at a time.

Today was about strengthening the values, tightening the transitions, and adding a little more depth. It’s not flashy work, but it’s the kind of work that makes everything around it stronger.

Sleeves aren’t built in a day. They’re built one session, one decision, and one layer at a time.

05/30/2026

I got over 300 reactions on one of my posts last week! Thanks everyone for your support! 🎉

05/29/2026

This dragon is sitting on top of a much smaller dragon that had been there for years. Cover-ups always come with their own set of challenges, and this one lives in a spot that sees a lot of sun, so the strategy shifts a bit.

Higher contrast. Stronger values. More open skin left as highlights.

Those little pockets of untouched skin aren’t empty space—they’re doing some heavy lifting. They create brightness without relying entirely on lighter pigments, which tend to lose the battle against time, sunlight, and life in general.

We’ll probably be adding more color as we go, but the goal isn’t just to make it look good today. It’s to give it the best chance of still reading clearly after years of sun, weather, and whatever adventures its owner drags it through.

A tattoo that has to survive abuse needs a slightly different game plan than one that spends its life hiding under a shirt.