Krysten Dae’s tattoo shop is the best kind of hole-in-the-wall place. Walk in off of Water Street in Port Townsend, near the Lively Olive, and follow the hand-painted signs to the foot of the stairs, where the door opens into a homage to two decades in tattoo culture. The walls of the “tat cave,” as Dae called it, are lined with art by and from artists she admires, many with personal notes.

The range of styles is wide, but the common denominator is their quality.

“I’ve always been an artist,” Dae said. “I’ve always known I would pursue a career in art.”

She plucked tacks from a cork board as she talked, spreading out an assortment of recent drawings on her table.

“I have a pretty distinct style,” she said. “It’s bold. I use traditional color schemes, but it’s still illustrative.”

While she uses an iPad Pro to complete most of her drawings, initial designs usually start on paper so she can capture the gesture and movement that gives a tattoo a certain kind of life. She tugged on the corner of a piece of tracing paper, embellished with a graphite drawing of a Japanese phoenix. She’d hand-traced him to make sure his proportions looked right, after doing the bulk of the design on her tablet.

“I really like this one,” she said, tapping her finger on a drawing that melded an Egyptian bust with a falcon’s head. It was about the size of her hand, or a one-session tattoo. Smaller tattoos have a flat rate, but larger works are hourly.

The time that goes into creating each tattoo can take hours of work. Dae only does custom designs these days; as a working mother of three children, with two dogs, a partner, and a parent at home, she’s somewhat miraculously honed in a schedule that works for her.

Nobody seems to mind, either. She’s booked out until the first of the year.

And Dae is holding a Halloween flash event on Friday, Oct. 15 and Sunday,
Oct. 17, with all proceeds benefiting Dove House. She calculates that should be about $2,000; she filled up all of the available appointments in a few days. She asks herself often, “How can I use tattooing to help the community?”

WATER STREET TATTOO

Dae opened her private studio in April after 13 years of working as a sole proprietor. She and her family moved to town nearly two years ago. While she might be new to the PT scene, her love of ink started when she was 11.

“Enamored,” was how she described the first time she saw a tattoo, an anklet on her older stepbrother’s leg. Somehow, she found that even more cool than his Camaro, and she started scheming about getting her hands on tattoo magazines.

Dae and her high school boyfriend swapped tattoos at the age of 16; ironically, both became tattoo artists. When her mom finally noticed the ink on her daughter’s arm, she had a hard time believing it was permanent.

After graduating, Dae made a move.

“I was hanging around a tattoo shop until I finally worked up the courage to ask for an apprenticeship,” she admitted, laughing.

“I picked up tons of skills,” she said of her first shop experience.

She learned how to draw designs, talk to clients, and make needles. But Springfield, Missouri, wasn’t exactly the epicenter of tattoo culture. Soon, Dae had set her sights on Seattle.

A NATURAL

By 2004, she had made the move to the Pacific Northwest.

“I loved Seattle, I was thriving there,” she said. “It was everything I’d hoped it would be.”

She picked up a bartending gig, then started making needles and doing the books for a tattoo shop around the corner from where she worked. Dae began apprenticing in 2006, and by 2008 she was professionally licensed.

It took a little effort to get Dae to speak to her talent. While a mischievous twinkle and easy smile come naturally to her, she is careful with her words, giving more than average consideration to what she wants to say.

“I gained clientele really quickly,” she finally said. “I treated people with respect.”

She nodded, her layered hair bobbing.

“I felt really proud,” she said of watching her first-ever client leave the shop.

“I had talent for it.”

CONSENT IS COOL

“I’m super grateful to tattooing and the people who have helped me along the way,” Dae acknowledged, but she also admitted tattoo culture has its dark side.

“Tattooing has its problems, just like the rest of society,” she said, pointing out that systemic trauma, sexual harassment, racism, misogyny, and abuse often bubble to the surface.

“Every week, I hear a horror story from a female client about some sort of abuse from a male tattooer,” she said, her face serious.

“Receiving a tattoo is one of the most vulnerable things you can do,” she said. “A lot of time people don’t know what to do, or what is appropriate.”

“I made it my personal mission to talk about consent,” she said. “I’m making intentional steps to break the cycle.”

The acronym “TAT” stands for Trauma Aware Tattooing, a practice Dae has been studying, including attending workshops with Tamara Santibañaz, a tattoo artist, activist, and author.

Dae has a wall-mounted brochure case near the shop door that holds leaflets with more information. She summed the concept up as “just treating someone like a whole person.”

“I think we can preserve a lot of the old traditions of tattooing, while becoming more inclusive,” she said, her face earnest.

“Women and people of color have been talking about this in tattooing,” she added, stating that in the past decade, there has been a demand for women and LGBTQIA+ owned tattoo shops. A collective awareness, she added, is growing, shifting from the male-dominated old guard to spaces where folks feel safe and respected.

“Tattooing is completely transformative,” she said. 

“Respect the magic.”