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Main Street Series: Main Street Tattoos

One of the benefits of living on a campus as small as ours is that you’re never more than ten minutes away from Main Street. Last week, we started a Main Street Series hoping to encourage students to take advantage of that fact by exploring some of those wonderful businesses available to us! This week we’ll be hearing from Main Street Tattoos. 

Of course, it’s long been known that college students, many of whom are living alone and with their own money for the first time, are a big audience for tattoos. Even then, the popularity has been steadily rising across the board. To tell us more about what this specific shop has to offer, Mark Bell, the owner, spoke to me this week.

 

Q: How did you get started in this business?

A: I started just over 30 years ago in a tattoo supply business building tattoo machines and other equipment and from there progressed into tattooing.

Q: Do you get to interact with students often? 

A: Yes, we interact with students regularly. Not just from Roanoke College but from Virginia Tech, JMU, Radford, and other surrounding colleges and Universities.

Q: How does being close to campus affect your business? 

A: Being close to campus has been good because it allows students that don’t have their own cars to be able to walk to my shop, making it easier for students to get tattooed.

Q: Tell me about some of your favorite tattoos the shop has done!

A: I can’t say that I have a favorite tattoo that I’ve done, as it is as much about the interaction with the customer and the experience that they have as it is what the tattoo is. We try to make the whole experience as fun and enjoyable as possible. 

Q: Any other thoughts? 

A: As the popularity of tattoos continues to grow, I encourage people to dig a little deeper into the history and different styles of tattooing. Tattoos can and should be more than what’s popular on the internet at any given moment. I encourage people to talk to tattooers about what they are hoping to get out of their tattoo experience so that we (tattooers) can give them the best experience possible. 

Maggie Raker

Section Editor