www.SharpTattoos.com
A little background information about Me...
I started life as Stacey Keys. I was an odd little girl, even though my parents say otherwise. Maybe it was me, maybe it was other people, maybe it was 8 years of Catholic schooling... but I never felt as if I was meant to fit in. So, I drew.
Both of my parents were artists so I started drawing when I was very young. I drew on everything including furniture, walls, the street, myself and my friends... (Do you know how many times I got lectured about ink poisoning?) My mother was a great help in teaching me a lot of the basics of art while my sisters encouraged me and my fathers constructive criticism helped me to focus on what I was doing right as well as wrong.
When I got to high school I took a few art classes here and there and then entered a graphic arts program rather than strictly art classes (which I could kick myself for now...) but it was fun and I had some great experiences and cherish most of the memories. :)
After graduation I needed to find something to do with my life...
Never having any formal art training, and not wanting to go into a commercial art field, I needed to find something to do that would let me reach a wide audience, and still have personal freedom to do what I wanted. Tattooing just sort of fell into my lap after I got my first one at age 19. I was actually approached about tattooing in 1991 when I spent about 8 months in Topeka Kansas. I don't know why I didn't go for it then...
So, I've been tattooing since February of '92. The first four years were trial and error with a lot of common sense. In '96 I finally got a job in a studio. Since then I've learned something from every artist that I've worked with. I firmly believe that you never stop learning. There is always something new that you'll disover each day. I must say that my route to tattooing was not the best way to learn... nor was it the easiest. At times, it was downright hell and I feel that I missed out on a lot because of that. I could have learned much more much faster had I taken a proper apprenticeship. It seemed like no artists in my area were willing to put much faith in a female tattoo artist at the time...
I came to Long Island from the outskirts of Pittsburgh Pa (a little place called McKeesport) in November of 1997 and since then I have worked very hard and developed my skills dramatically on and off skin.. I worked in Bayshore NY for 2 1/2 years before moving to Ink Alternative in Ronkonkoma in May of 2000. In June of 2009 I moved to InkPulsive where I am currently. :)
I enjoy working with ink and flesh, but I also enjoy working with colored pencil and marker and every so often I fiddle with digital/computer artwork. I make all of the headers and graphics for this site... I'm now trying to figure out simple animations. Sometimes I have been known to paint, although not very often... but lately I've been fooling with watercolors and acrylics just for the hell of it. :)
My favorite subjects to work with are Fantasy and Nature, Faeries, Flowers, Dragons, Animals and Birds although I do like a wide range of things and am open to almost anything. I am always up for a challenge. Tattooing can be stressfull at times, but most of the time it's rather fun and relaxing for me. I zone out and let my hands go... and things happen.
In my spare time, I still draw on paper quite a bit. I'm always coming up with new ideas and I love to collect images for ideas and inspiration on the internet. Sometimes its nice to sit down and just create something for myself.
I am influenced by Artists and Tattoo Artists alike. My favorite tattoo artists at the moment are Guy Aitchison, Jesse Smith, Kirk Alley, Nikko Hurtado... and many more. I am heavily influenced by the Artwork of traditional artists such as Boris Vallejo & Julie Bell, Alphonse Mucha and Brian Froud.
Music helps me to create and I like to listen to many different types depending on what I'm working on. Of course, I'm not held in by borders... so I listen to a fairly wide range of music. What I listen to depends on what I'm doing at the time. I love everything from new age music to classic rock, country, blues, jazz... industrial, techno and even some metal... I'm fairly open. :D
This website was originally created purely as an experiment. A client of mine was supposed to build a website for me in exchange for work but the deal fell through. So, I decided to take up this project on my own, just to see if I could. I started out with a free page from angelfire.com that lasted from March 21, 2002 to December 31, 2003. I had to learn basic html and build the site manually. It was fairly confusing, but it worked.
In November 2003 I finally got my own domain here at SharpTattoos.com. I used Dreamweaver to build this website, which is sort of cheating, but hey... I'm not a webwizard... I'm an artist.
I can be found:
Click for Patchogue, New York Forecast
All images contained within this website are ©Stacey Sharp & Sharptattoos 2002-2012
Photos, artwork and icons are not to be used without permission.