Meet Nick LaPinta | Tattoo Artist & Piercer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nick LaPinta and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nick, how do you think about risk?
Oh man, I could talk on this topic forever! In my eyes, risk is the most important part of any great decision you’ll ever make! May 2016, my wife (ex-wife now) made the decision to move from a small town of 400 people in NW Ohio to Atlanta, GA to start our own business, a tattoo shop. Believe you, me… We heard from friends, family, and acquaintances a million reasons why we shouldn’t move to Atlanta or open the shop. Excuses all the way from the crime, what if you fail, all the responsibilities fall on you, the cost of living, how will a tattoo shop make you successful, you can make just as much money here in Ohio… lol, and god knows what else we heard. I chose to ignore a lot of it. But with all that negative attitude and bad vibes, that was only more fuel to my fire to make my move and get out of there happen. We encountered just about every problem before, during, and after the move to give us a hundred reasons why not to move or why to go back home. But failure wasn’t an option for us. My car broke down for we left, broke down again on the way to Atlanta, and broke down again after we arrived. Our apartment fell through only a couple days before we planed on moving to the ATL, the motel we planed on staying in after that was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen and money started to get a little tight. That first day in Atlanta we had just became “homeless”. By the grace of this world a friend we knew from Ohio happened to move to Decatur and had a room in his house available for about a month and offered it to us. We took that and then got to work. We eventually found jobs, got an apartment and began our new life adventure. Over the next year I was working anywhere from 60-90 hours a week at a tattoo shop. As you can imagine this put a HUGE strain on my marriage. I was never home, and that in itself lead to its own issues, but that’s another story. But on an off note, no, these risks are not what lead to my marriage ending. I could go another 20 pages on my story to taking risks, but i’ll try and make is short and sweet. Risks are scary, they really are. Some of those risks are going to leave you stressed, having knots in your stomach, and even lose nights of sleep. You’re told no a million times before you’re told yes. But that is all you need, just… one… yes. That “yes” will make everything worth it! I felt like I was standing in front of everyone who was negative and then flipped them the bird! Now here is where risk taking gets even more… uhh fun, I guess you could say. Are you ready for this? Failure! That’s apart of the risk AND a very important part of success. I chose to call failure, “lessons”. Because to say I failed is to say you quit. Benjamin Franklin said it best, for me. “I didn’t fail, I found 2,000 ways how NOT to make a light bulb”. It’s okay to take an L. Chances are it’ll set you back and it’ll take a while for you to come up again. That’s alright, because it’ll be even Better next time. Today I am more successful than I have ever been as a tattoo artist, I own one of my dream cars, and I am growing and no longer afraid to take risks. That’s right, it does get easier! So wake up early, put on your big kid undies, and take a risk! Ask your boss for the promotion, break up with that significant other that is holding you back, read something about starting a business you have always wanted to do, or book that trip to go skydiving. The answer is always “no” if you never ask. So start today with taking the risk of making one unreasonable request a day. Like, I said before, “you’ll be told no a million times before you’re told yes. But one yes is all you need”. What risk isn’t worth having a better tomorrow?

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am a traditional/ new school tattoo artist in Marietta. I feel like my updated traditional style separates me from most “old school” artists out there. Not to say I am the only one who does it, but I feel it isn’t as common. Also my speed as an artist. Almost daily, I get, “you’re done already” or something similar to that. No skin is turned down, I have so many customers who have told me “my skin doesn’t hold color/ink, my skin tone is too dark to do something like this, that scar can’t be covered. Now to be clear, there are many things that don’t work because of skin tone, scars, or skin condition. But we have come a long way in this industry and we can do so many more things with those types of skin now! Some aritsts are just not skilled with that particular type of skin, others just don’t want to do it. I’m sure there are other reasons as well, but I try my best to educate everyone in doubt of their skin for a tattoo. Sometimes I can do it, other times it’s just not in the stars for them to get one particular tattoo. I am a very competitive person and I plateau quick. But as soon as you put someone around me that is better or faster I instantly up my game and work harder to be better. Tattooing came pretty natural to me. The crazy thing is I didn’t even want or think about being a tattoo artist. It just kind of fell into my lap. I dropped out of high school and realized that was dumb because all my friends where still in school, I had too much pride to go back to that school and joined a “drop out” school. The education level was pretty low there and it left me bored, not to say I am some crazy smart person, but what they where learning as seniors is what I learned as a freshman in my original school. Any who, I was on the brink of expulsion until a guidance councilor offer me a program called JOG (Jobs for Ohio Grads). It put students into the work for and we where paid by the government instead of the employer as incentive to hire us. So I took on a job at a tattoo shop, Artistic Expressions to work there. I eventually learned how to tattoo and that is what started my career. So yes, I was payed by the government to learn how to tattoo, technically. Thanks Obama! As he is the one who made those programs possible. Learning to tattoo was easy for me. But being successful wasn’t. I was not the biggest social media person and that caused a lot of market issues. Most artists I worked for where old school guys that thought marketing was going out to bars and shaking hands… Yeah that doesn’t work anymore and it took me a long time to figure that out. I was always broke the first 7 years of my tattoo career. I’m still not the best with social media but I have gotten way better and my clientele speaks for that. I spend a lot of time with my customers, we talk, I try to follow their lives on social media and that gives us something to talk about. Considering how forgetful I am as a human being, it’s mind boggling how I remember the things I do with my customers; trips, surgeries, events, kids, so on and so forth. That gives a lot of my customers a scene of comfort and friendship with me. I think that is a big part of why I have a lot of repeats as well as something that separates myself from a lot of the rest.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well I have been here for about 3.5 years now and unfortunately all I do is work. So I, myself don’t do very much but work and home. So a lot of things I do would be my first time as well. But for food, I’d take them out to Mellow Mushroom for sure! Tacos and Tequila on Ponce, Haddy Bees, Irie Mon Cafe, and all the food trucks in Atlanta! Georgia Aquarium is always a fun time! Depending on who was visiting we would go out to the Botanical Gardens, Little Five Points, Atlantic Station, and Doll Head Trail. I havent done much for clubs or anything like that but yall know anyone coming to the ATL for the first time, NEEDS to be taken to the Clermont Lounge.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I have a few people who I am thankful for in becoming who I am today. First and foremost, you gotta shout out the Momma, she’s your mother. My Dad, over the past years I have discover how much I am like him and I got my “go out and get it”, hustle mentality from him. Brian Welsh (Artistic Expressions) for teaching how to tattoo, McKenzie Bomb (Bomb Ink) for being a great friend and boss for a little before I left to move to Atlanta. Frank Carola (Allied Ink) for being an amazing boss and friend. I also thank all other people I worked for that I will not mention because I don’t like them and the lessons I learned from them where things NOT to do in the tattoo industry. Shout out to my boy, Matt who put a roof over our heads when we moved to Atlanta! you have no idea how much that means to us, man! Barrack Obama, reason why in the questionnaire, Last but not least I thank my ex-wife, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be who I am today. She got my head out of my ass, taught me to be better with money, and helped me not be such a boy… ladies you know what I’m talking about hahaha. Oh also Robert Kiyosaki, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Zig Ziggler, Gary Veynerchuck, Andrew Carnegie, and Napoleon Hill (motivational speaks and self wealth authors/ speakers)

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