09/02/2026
Happy Birthday!!!š 29 YEARS OF DRAGONFLY TATTOO STUDIO š
September 2, 1997 ā¢ September 2, 2026
Today marks 29 years since I opened the doors to Dragonfly Tattoo Studio.
Itās hard to wrap my head around that number.
I was 27 years old, a husband and a father of three, trying to build something that would allow me to provide for my family while doing something I loved.
I remember paying the first and last monthās rent and barely having enough money left to pay the insurance.
I remember looking around and asking myself:
āHow long are we going to last?ā
I laughed and answered my own question:
āAt least 60 days.ā
Wellā¦
Those 60 days somehow turned into 29 years.
TATTOOING IN 1997
Itās difficult to explain to someone entering tattooing today just how different this business was when Dragonfly opened.
There was no social media. No Instagram or Facebook. The internet wasnāt something a small tattoo shop could rely on to build its business.
Advertising meant print, and print advertising was expensive. As a small business just trying to keep the lights on, we couldnāt afford much of it.
Heck, we couldnāt even afford a copier in the beginning.
So we built Dragonfly the old-fashioned way.
One tattoo at a time.
One client at a time.
One recommendation at a time.
Our clients were our advertising.
Someone would see one of our tattoos and ask:
āWhere did you get that?ā
And hopefully the answer was:
āDragonfly.ā
Our portfolios werenāt online.
We photographed our tattoos with a 35mm film camera.
We might spend a couple of months filling a roll of film before taking it to be developed. Then we could wait another week or two before getting the pictures back.
Only then did you find out whether you even got a good photograph.
Those pictures went into physical portfolios that clients sat in the shop and flipped through.
That was our Instagram.
We spent countless hours drawing, creating and hand-coloring tattoo flash to hang on the walls.
Those flash sheets were more than decoration. They were our artwork, our catalog and part of our identity as tattoo artists.
I even remember when camera phones started showing up.
Suddenly people could photograph the flash weād spent hours creating and take the picture to another tattooer looking for a better price.
We actually put signs up asking people not to photograph our flash.
Itās pretty funny to think about now.
We went from waiting months to see our own photographs to eventually living in a world where we intentionally put our artwork online for everyone to see.
THE CRAFT WAS DIFFERENT TOO
Ordering tattoo supplies meant picking up the telephone and actually calling the supplier.
You told them what you needed and waited for the order to arrive.
A lot of times you paid C.O.D., Cash on Delivery, or by money order.
There was no clicking āadd to cart.ā
And there werenāt nearly as many tattoo supplies available.
We built our own needle groupings by hand.
We built and tuned our tattoo machines.
We made our own coils.
We cut our own springs.
We learned how our machines worked, how they sounded and how they felt.
Single-use disposable tattoo supplies werenāt available to us the way they are today, so preparing, autoclaving and sterilizing our reusable equipment in-house was part of operating a tattoo studio.
Being a tattoo artist involved a lot of work that happened long before anyone ever sat in your chair.
And if you wanted to know what was happening in tattooing outside your little corner of the world?
You waited for the next tattoo magazine.
A new issue might come out every few months, and weād study it.
Thatās where we got to see what was new and exciting and what some of the best tattoo artists around the world were creating.
Youād look at those photographs over and over, study what other artists were doing, get inspired and go back to your own work wanting to become better.
Tattoo conventions existed, but nothing like today. Maybe weād make it to one a year.
A lot of our traveling and tattooing happened at bike shows and biker rallies.
Weād pack everything up, take our equipment and flash, set up and tattoo.
There was no announcing yourself to thousands of followers.
You showed up.
You talked to people.
You showed them your work.
And you let your tattooing speak for itself.
Looking back at all of that now, tattooing in 1997 almost feels like another world.
And Iāve been fortunate enough to watch that world change.
DRAGONFLY AND I GREW UP TOGETHER
I was 27 when Dragonfly opened.
Today Iām 56.
Iāve spent nearly half my life walking through those doors.
Iāve watched tattooing change.
Iāve watched technology change.
Iāve watched our equipment change.
Iāve watched our industry grow.
Iāve watched my children grow up.
And somewhere along the way, Dragonfly and I grew up together.
There have been some incredible highs over these 29 years.
There have also been some very difficult lows.
But we kept going.
Dragonfly has been much more than a business to me.
It has been my home.
Itās been a place where people come together.
A place to create.
A place to talk and laugh.
A place to meet people and build relationships.
A place where artists could learn.
And a place where people from completely different walks of life could sit beside one another and simply interact as people.
THE HEART OF DRAGONFLY IS FAMILY
Of everything Dragonfly has given me, what makes me proudest is what it has provided for our family.
Today, we have six tattoo artists within our family, including sons, daughters and wives.
Theyāve been able to take this craft, build careers and provide for families of their own.
I think about that 27-year-old husband and father wondering whether he could keep the doors open for 60 days.
He was just trying to provide for his family.
He had no idea that almost three decades later, the business he was struggling to get started would help another generation of that family provide for theirs.
Thatās a blessing I will never take for granted.
But when I say Dragonfly family, I donāt only mean those who share our name.
Over the years, Iāve had the privilege of sharing my knowledge with many artists who studied, apprenticed and worked alongside us.
Iāve watched artists who learned at Dragonfly grow into incredibly talented tattooers, including some of the best artists in Kansas City.
Knowing that something they learned within these walls helped them build their own careers and support their own families is part of Dragonflyās legacy too.
AND NONE OF IT HAPPENS WITHOUT OUR CLIENTS
For 29 years, people have trusted us with something incredibly personal.
Their skin and their stories.
Weāve tattooed celebrations, accomplishments and new beginnings.
Weāve created memorials for people who were loved and lost.
Weāve tattooed artwork that represents families, beliefs, passions and memories.
And sometimes weāve created something simply because somebody thought it would look damn cool.
All of those reasons matter.
Some of our clients have been coming to Dragonfly for decades.
Weāve watched them grow up.
Theyāve watched us grow up.
Weāve seen them get married, have children and build families.
And now something pretty incredible is happening.
Some of those clients are bringing their sons and daughters to Dragonfly.
Weāre tattooing multiple generations of the same families.
Think about the amount of trust represented by that.
Someone trusted us enough to permanently put our artwork on their body years ago, and now they trust us enough to bring their own child through our doors.
There isnāt an advertisement, award, number of followers or number of likes that could mean more to me than that.
Every appointment mattered.
Every tattoo mattered.
Every referral mattered.
Every conversation mattered.
And every person who ever told somebody:
āGo to Dragonfly.ā
mattered.
Because you didnāt just support a tattoo shop.
You supported our family.
You helped provide opportunities for our sons, daughters, wives, artists and apprentices.
You helped other artists build careers.
You helped families put food on their tables.
And somewhere along this journeyā¦
Clients became friends.
Artists became family.
And a tattoo shop became a community.
29 YEARS LATERā¦
At 56 years old, Iām still here.
Still tattooing.
Still creating.
Still teaching.
Still learning.
And still striving every day to become a better artist and a better version of myself than I was yesterday.
If 29 years in tattooing has taught me anything, itās that you never know everything.
Thereās always another technique to learn.
Another artist who can inspire you.
Another tattoo that can challenge you.
Another way to become better.
Technology has changed.
Machines have changed.
Supplies have changed.
The business has changed.
Tattooing has changed.
But some things havenāt.
Do good work.
Treat people right.
Earn their trust.
Never stop learning.
And give people a reason to come back.
Thatās what helped us survive those first 60 days.
And I believe thatās a big part of what got us here 29 years later.
Sometimes I think about that 27-year-old kid who had just paid his first and last monthās rent, barely had enough left for insurance, couldnāt afford a copier and was wondering how long this little tattoo shop was going to survive.
Iād like to tell him:
āJust keep going. You have no idea what youāre about to build.ā
Because on September 2, 1997, I opened Dragonfly hoping I could create a future for my family.
Twenty-nine years later, I can look around and realize we created something much bigger.
We built a family.
We built a community.
We built a legacy.
To my family, every artist who has ever called Dragonfly home, everyone who learned or shared their knowledge within these walls, and every client who has trusted us and supported us:
Thank you.
You helped build Dragonfly.
You helped support our family.
And you became part of ours.
š DRAGONFLY TATTOO STUDIO
EST. SEPTEMBER 2, 1997
29 YEARS STRONG.
From hoping weād make it 60 daysā¦
to beginning our journey toward 30 years.
And weāre not finished yet.
