Dennis Hamilton was interested in art for years before he became a tattoo artist, but the profession didn’t occur to him as a possible career path until the show Miami Ink came out in 2005.
“(Art is) something I do to keep myself sane-ish,” he said.
Hamilton, 42, is originally from Oceanside, California, but he opened a tattoo parlor in Mount Holly in October. Hamilton studied video game design at The Art Institute of San Diego, but then when friends suggested he consider tattooing, it opened up a new avenue of possibility.
“I didn’t really think much about tattooing as an avenue because I wasn’t really into that,” he said. “I didn’t really have any tattoos or anything at the time. My understanding because just what I was seeing at the time was just a lot of like, old school Americana work and tribal stuff. And that wasn’t really appealing to me. I like more black and gray realism.
“So that show showed me like, oh, there’s a lot more you can do with it. So friends pushed me into it. They bought me a bunch of the equipment, and I put together a portfolio and shopped around for an apprenticeship.”