Contributed by:
John Zwick, YourHub.com
Article Contributed on: 4/2/2007 2:10:50 PM
If you've caught a local rock show any time in, say, the past five years, there's a pretty good chance you've been getting two shows for one -- live tunes and a look at the living, breathing gallery sporting the work of ink-slingers at Th'ink Tank Tattoo Studio at 172 S. Broadway.
The shop, founded in March 2002, made its way from its first location downtown to the hipper climes of the South Broadway area and have since nearly doubled their staff of artists. Since the move, they've tattooed a laundry list of local bands including Vaux, The Photo Atlas, Love me Destroyer, King Rat, the Railbenders, the Swayback and a number of touring bands passing through.
"Name a local band -- they probably got tattooed here," said Th'ink Tank artist
Adam Rosenthal, as
Fame, by Vaux cranked in the background. "If they haven't got tattooed here, we're probably friends with them, especially in the hardcore scene or indie scene."
The shop and its artists owe their popularity to talent and a reputation for custom work. The ubiquitous bicep "tribal" tattoo or butterfly tramp stamp may still be the bread and butter of a lot of tattoo shops, but Rosenthal said "our reputation is based on custom tattooing you can't really get anywhere else. We tattoo eight hours a day, we draw two to three hours at night and probably another hour in the morning."
"Every one of us has some kind of secondary education or formal training," added
Fish, another Th'ink Tank artist.
Visitors to
thinktanktattoo.com can look through the artists' works on flesh and canvas, and every couple of months, the shop rotates in a new gallery show. My visit came in on the tail end of an exhibit from
Claire Jackel, a Denver artist with a predilection for painting train wrecks. Awesome.
Th'ink Tank is open Tuesdays through Saturdays.
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