A Tattoo Shop with a Heart of Gold

A truth I’ve realized—and I’m sure many of you have realized—is how connected we all are. And one way we’ve been able to tune into this realization is with the collective loss we've felt during this pandemic.

We’ve all lost something by now. It could be your favorite restaurant you used to go to. It could be your job. It could be your business. It could be a hug that you were used to getting, now marred by social distancing measures. It could be someone you know who has died from the virus. There have been varying (and devastating) degrees of loss.

Armed with more time and more perspective than I’ve ever had as an adult, I now realize what I’ve lost. And I miss it more than ever. Even being able to shake hands with someone new seems a lifetime ago.

The positive of all this: if we now realize this truth—how connected we are—then when we return to it, we’ll hopefully have more gratitude toward each other resulting in more genuine time spent in our communities and more holistic acknowledgement of the world around us.

The negative is what we’re facing now. We’re in the thick of it—anxiety, economic and physical depression, death and all. These first few months of the pandemic have passed and I’ve seen businesses in my hometown of Salt Lake City shut down left and right, from beloved antique stores to neighborhood restaurants and coffee shops.

Nothing is immune to the devastating financial and physical effects of this virus. Real people with real families living in real communities have had to close up their businesses, effectively uprooting their lives for, at the very least, a year or two.

The tattoo community in Salt Lake isn’t immune to this virus either. Tattoo shops here all had to shutter their doors back in March, taking a financial blow along with it.

But with the new “soft opening” that Utah has issued as of May 1, a lot of tattoo shops have opened back up with all the necessary precautions put in place (i.e., social distancing measures, face masks, one-on-one sessions, no visitors, no walk-ins, sanitize and deep clean every day).

Much like you I wonder when is the right time to enter into the world again. The team of officials and experts here in Utah have all decided that now is the time to take that step, to rejuvenate our fractured state. I sure as hell don't want to see the tattoo community in Salt Lake City suffer so it's definitely nice to see this soft opening happening.

Heart of Gold Tattoo is one of these shops that has recently re-opened. The owner, Andrew King, is a close friend of mine. And since I’m a filmmaker by both passion and trade I decided to make a short documentary piece about Andrew and Heart of Gold, to capture an interesting time in his life, in his collective business life, in our community life, and in all of human history really.

I sat down with Andrew to talk about his path to becoming a tattooer, owning a tattoo shop, and keeping it afloat during a pandemic. I even got tattooed for this mini-documentary, masks, safety, and all.

Tell me why you’re fascinated with tattooing. Why did you get into it initially?

When I was younger, tattoos were all around me but in a different way than here at the tattoo shop. Friend’s parents, friend’s older brothers and friends in general all had tattoos. We would even make little tattoo machines, like little homemade tat guns to tattoo each other.

When I was 12 I actually got tattooed on this block. I got a little cross on my arm, just a simple line down and a line over, right on my friend’s front porch.

Tattooing just seemed tangible to me. Something you could do and you could progress at. It just seemed so deep. You could swim in it forever, always. And just learn new things.

What inspires you within tattooing?

I’ve been super fortunate to work with talented and accomplished tattooers. It’s revitalizing all the time because everybody’s doing something new. Creating something out of nothing. Just pulling an idea that could work and making it real on somebody.

Is there an intimacy in tattooing?

Totally yeah, that’s interesting to think about.

I think about people I’ve tattooed who have died. That was a weird thing. When I first recognized that, it was like, ‘oh my gosh that’s kind of weird.’ You see the end of it, ya know. I think the tattoo goes with them into the next world.

There’s a culture actually—I can’t remember what culture it is—but they believe that you can’t be seen in the afterlife without tattoos.

Have you missed the community aspect during the pandemic?

I totally miss the connection with people. This is a super social community. I go to all these tattoo shops around here because they’re genuinely my friends and I miss that.

Or I miss running into a client at the bar or at a restaurant, because that’s always cool, you get to see your client who you’ve built this relationship with and you have this rapport. It’s good to see them and see them doing well. I miss all of it.

What else has been hard with this transition?

I miss being able to be a part of other people’s businesses, too. Just be a part of it all, ya know.

How has this impacted Heart of Gold?

We closed two weeks before they ordered everybody to close. We just wanted to protect ourselves and the community and not propagate this virus. We wanted to do our part.

We’ve all definitely been financially affected by it. It’s not just the social thing and then the physical thing that we’re deprived of. We’re making do though.

We’ve all stayed in touch, too, painting and sending pictures of our work to each other. Just keeping each other hyped up like how we would in here. So the chill of it has been nice in that creative aspect.

Have you opened back up? What does that look like now?

As of right now the mandate ended on May 1st. That made it so that we could come back, take all of the necessary precautions that we’ve been advised by the health department to do: masks, social distancing, appointment only. We’re operating basically as a private tattoo studio.

I’m super blessed and fortunate to be able to get back to it in the capacity that we can right now. It’s kind of nice to ease back into it, have it be a little bit more controlled, a bit more relaxed, it’s not as loud, not as much going on.

There’s a magic to that, ya know. People just coming in and getting a tattoo. It’s awesome.

What can people do to help support Heart of Gold and the tattoo community as a whole?

People are creating art right now. Art they're creating to give as a reference for a tattoo. There’s a lot of flash and a lot of paintings being done. Support tattooing by checking that stuff out.

Check everybody’s Instagram out. At my shop. At local shops that you like, too. Check out what they’ve got going on, what we’ve got going on. Set an appointment. Get a cool tattoo. Get an eagle. Get a snake. Get some flowers. Maybe some skulls, ya know.

To learn more about @heartofgoldtattoo give them a follow on social media. If you're a Salt Lake local, buy a gift card for the future or book a one-on-one appointment now. Show them, as well as all the local businesses you love, your support.