I’ve been in tattoo studios from the age of 9 and attended my first tattoo convention in 1995. My step father is a Hells Angel and they ran the industry back in the 90’s. I’ve literally had the longest apprenticeship ever. I was scrubbing tubes mixing ink and making needles from that age. At 16 I wanted to become a body piercer and my step father was like you need to touch men in funny places , horrified I opted out. 

He did however try convince me then to tattoo but I wasn’t having it (stubborn teenager) After matriculating at 17 I pursued a career is the insurance industry which I did for 15 years but in that time still in and out of the studio and then opening Awhe with Theunis in 2008. 

I wasn’t sure if tattooing was something I wanted to do so I would literally try my hand at it and then leave the idea on the back burner and just focused on getting the studio busy by doing marketing attending events etc...

Anyway long story short I eventually decided to give it my all and I’ve been tattooing on and off for around seven years and constantly for the last three obviously excluding our not so cool covid holiday.