JACKSON, MI - One room looks like a medieval torture chamber. The next features the brown leather and brass pipes synonymous with steampunk. Skulls and bones remind you of the voodoo culture of New Orleans.
This is the decor at Custom Creations Tattoo and Art Studio. Located at 808 W. Monroe Street in Jackson, this shop offers ink, piercings and micro-blading services. Prices are negotiated with the artists, but typically with a $100 minimum.
Owner Kim Shady founded the business in 2016. The longtime nurse at Henry Ford Allegiance Health said she’s “always been an artist."
“I always wanted to tattoo,” she said. “In my late teens, early 20′s though, it wasn’t really seen as acceptable (work). I’d kind of given up on it. I performed my first tattoo on my daughter Mackenzie, and I was hooked after that.”
Born and raised in Detroit, she headed to the Rhode Island School of Design after high school. At one of the nation’s most prestigious art schools, she decided to major in mechanical engineering.
Hating it, she focused instead on family, getting married at 19 and having her first child by the time she was 22.
She moved back to Addison to get her bachelor’s in nursing at Jackson College and Spring Arbor University. After discovering tattoo work, she was determined to further her education on the craft.
While she said there were “a handful of respectable shops" in Jackson, there weren’t “a lot of opportunities to learn.”
“I traveled to Florida,” she said. “I went to all the workshops, classes and seminars I could. When I came back, I felt I had the skills to start my own place.”
The studio’s first location was behind the Metro by T-Mobile on 1400 N. West Ave. Suite B in Jackson. Within two weeks, it made the finalist list for MLive’s “Coolest Tattoo Shop” in Michigan.
She split her time as a nurse with her newfound passion until 18 months ago. However, she still has her licenses updated “just in case.” She finds a lot of similarities in the two professions.
“You have to have a good concept of anatomy,” she said about both, “skin, skin conditions and effects that tattooing can have on the body. That’s why cleanliness at our place is next to godliness.”
She emphasizes that her staff has the right “personality” to be successful, stressing that you can teach technical skills but not the right mindset to be creative and productive. She specifically pointed to:
- Michael J. Davis, an artist with over two decades of experience
- Lana Kane, an anime lover with chops in “new school” and “full color blast”
- D.J. Strickling, who specializes in American traditional and pop culture designs
- Samm Rae, who in just a month after her apprenticeship will be a “force in the industry”
- Amanda Davis, the micro-blading specialist who specializes in beauty tattoos
- Mackenzie Carlile, the “piercing superhero”
Shady wants customers to know that her artists and technicians will “sit you down and help you tell your story” through ink. The objective is to never regret a tattoo.
“Tattoos are kind of like roadmaps,” she said. “You may not like where you were, but you appreciate where you were at the time and how far you’ve come since.”
More information and artwork at their Facebook page.