Featured Grand Rapids Artists
Here are some of the best Grand Rapids tattoo artists and shops according to our research. If you think we should add anyone to the list or if you see anything that should be edited, contact us by clicking here
Ruben Sanchez
Nathan Galusha
Johnny Excess
Dylan Barker
Nick Sage
Emily Kukawka
Sam Dustin
Sarah Sun
Stephen Bateman
Patrick VanSandlyne
Brantley Moore
Johnny Spinoso
David Bel
Kelsey Havel
Mark Fettig
Wealthy Street Tattoo
Tattoo Profile: Wealthy St. Tattoo is a full custom tattoo studio located proudly on historic Wealthy Street in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We adhere to time tested, tried and true methods of tattooing.
Eric Easterday
The Gremlin House
Tattoo Profile: The Gremlin House is an established tattoo studio serving the Greater Grand Rapids area for nearly two decades. Our artists offer 100% customized tattoos, ranging from Traditional to Modern styles.
Honest To Goodness Tattoo and Piercing
Tattoo Profile: While you’re getting your tattoo or piercing at Honest To Goodness, we want you to feel comfortable, and we think our awesome shop accomplishes that! Bold colors and unique designs strategically scatter the floor plan. Plenty of sunlight and mellow music keep the mood light. We also have a restroom available right near the entrance. Check out the pictures below for a walkthrough!
Magnum Tattooing
Tattoo Profile: Founded in 1988, Magnum Tattooing is the longest continuously running tattoo shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Stop by our studios on South Division to see why we’ve stood the test of time.
Screaming Needle Tattoo & Piercing
Tattoo Profile: We offer friendly service in a safe environment. All of our equipment is put through an extensive cleaning process – finishing with autoclave sterilization, which is monitored by Global Autoclave Compliance Bio Science and the Grand Rapids Health Department. We are fully Licensed in the State Of Michigan and Kent County. Our needles are one time use for both Tattooing and Body Piercing.
Wicked Ways Tattoo and Piercing
Tattoo Profile: Wicked ways was Est in 2001 in the Grand Rapids area. We Have been in the area for the past 15 years making the studio one of the top 3 oldest studios in the area. We do all single sitting tattoos for $100 or less.
Mos Eisleys
Tattoo Profile: We are a full service tattoo studio. Our tattoo artists are very experienced in a wide variety of styles. We are a full custom studio (meaning we create a custom piece of artwork for each individual) and we will work diligently to make sure you get the nicest tattoo possible.
Pain for Sale Tattooing
Tattoo Profile: At Pain for Sale you will find nothing but professionalism, cleanliness and the best tattoo artists and piercers in the area. #1 priority. When you become a client of Pain for Sale, you become a part of our family and we treat our family well!
Lightning Revival Tattoo Company
Tattoo Profile: A custom, upscale tattoo and piercing facility. We strive to produce body art you’ll love and proudly wear forever.
Anarchy Ink Tattoos
Tattoo Profile: We are a custom Tattoo and Piercing studio. We take pride in maintaining a friendly and welcoming environment welcoming all walks of life.
Of all of the great tattoo studios in the Grand Rapids area, the one that everyone seems to have heard of is Sovereign Arms Tattoo. Located in the heart of the city, Sovereign Arms Tattoo is known for hiring artists with a wide range of styles, allowing customers to have a higher chance of finding an artist who has experience making their types of tattoos. They also have the latest equipment and a very attractive studio that everyone seems to be comfortable in.
You might find that some other tattoo shop in Grand Rapids is a better fit for you than Sovereign Arms Tattoo. You won’t know until you look around at what everyone has to offer! If you need a studio that has comfortable seating and a lot of space for you to breathe, then narrow your choices to just those that check those boxes by looking at pictures online. If you need an experienced team, you can look that up too. Look through reviews, tattooing policies, and anything else you need to until you find tattoo shop in Grand Rapids that you are sure you will be comfortable with.
Grand Rapids also has some fantastic artists to choose from, so you might want to choose your shop by the talent inside of the building rather than the company’s overall reviews. Some of the top tattoo artists in Grand Rapids include Sarah Sun, Shane from Mos Eisleys, Jay Morton, Stephen Bateman, and Johnny Excess. These are the types of artists that most people want to work with because they have spent years developing their skills and each of them has their own unique style that they bring to tattooing.
While you usually can’t go wrong with going with a tattoo artist that is very well-known, you might actually find that a lesser-known artist is actually the right one for you and your needs. The most important thing is that you work with an artist who makes you feel comfortable in the chair as you are getting inked and who has a style that you really like. Take a look at some artists’ portfolios, pick a couple out that you like, and then go out and visit your candidates before you make your final decision. Put in the extra time to figure out which artist is best for you and you will greatly increase your chances of ending up with the exact that tattoo that you wanted.
What’s great about getting tattoos in Grand Rapids is that you should be able to find an artist and shop that will be able to help you out with whatever you need. Considering the fact that there are 160 tattoo studios in the city right now and more popping up each year, the chances of you finding the perfect one for you are quite high. Just be sure that you take a little bit of time to learn about the shops and the artists that they employ before you commit your money and your skin to any of them.
The city of Grand Rapids, Michigan lies in West Michigan on the Grand River which is about 30 miles or so east of Lake Michigan. The city of Grand Rapids is the second largest city in the entire state of Michigan, with Detroit being number one, Grand Rapids houses up to around 190,000 residents with around one million others surrounding the outside metropolitan areas. Grand Rapids has its nickname as the ‘Furniture City’ for a reason. The city has been nicknamed the Furniture City because there are 5 of the world’s top office furniture companies in the world located just within the city. History museums, art galleries, and many more interesting things are available to check out while in Grand Rapids.
History
Roughly over 2000 years ago, the area known as the Grand River Valley was occupied by a number of different Indian tribes. This was called the Hopewell culture. The Hopewell culture was basically a bunch of different Indian tribes that were settled and situated on different parts of the rivers in the northeastern and midwestern United States. These tribes were not particularly all formed to create one, but they all had their different systems and values. Since these tribes were set up all around the rivers, they would help each other in the sense of using the rivers as a trade system to trade each other goods, this was known as the Hopewell exchange system.
During the late 1600’s, the tribe known as the Ottawa began to travel from the Ottawa River in the Canadian provinces to the Grand River. It was here where they fought three battles against the other Indian tribes that were inhabiting the area at the time. The tribe that the Ottawa fought were called the Prairie Indians. The tribes then split, leaving the Chippewas in the northern lower peninsula, the Potawatomies settling just south of the Kalamazoo River, and the Indian tribe, the Ottawa staying in what is now, central Michigan. The Ottawa settled along the Grand River and began to raise crops such as corn, melons, pumpkins, beans, and even went hunting in the forest and fished in the river for food.
In the early 1760’s, an Indian Chief known as Chief Pontiac visited the area in which the Ottawa stayed, doing so, he would ask over 3000 Indian natives to fight against the British which were in that time in the area we know now as Detroit. This eventually turned into an event known as Pontiac’s War. The tribe, the Potawatomi located by the Kalamazoo River, launched an attack against the Ottawa tribe in central Michigan but failed in doing so in an attempt to take over the Grand River area that the Ottawa inhabited. By the late parts of the 1700’s, there was somewhere around 1000 Ottawa Indians in the area that is now known as Kent County.
In the beginning of the 19th century, the French established territories in the area, living amongst the Ottawa Indian tribes. The French and the Ottawa lived in peace for the most part, trading goods such as furs and European metal and textiles. Not long after, a man by the name of Joseph and his wife Madeline La Framboise set up fur trading posts in the area. Joseph was tragically murdered on a trip to the Grand Rapids, after his death, Madeline soon took over the fur trading business they had established. She was determined to expand the business as far as possible, so she set up posts in the west and the north. Madeline’s mother was part of the Ottawa while her father was a French man. Because of this, Madeline was able to merge her and her late husband’s fur trading business with the American Fur Company. By the early 1800’s, the Ottawa Chief, Chief Noonday established a village on the west side of the river, inhabiting about 500 members of the Ottawa Indian tribe. The company was then passed down from Madeline to a man named Rix Robinson who was an accomplished fur trader of the time. At this time in 1821, there was said to be at least 50 to 60 huts constructed by the Ottawa on the west side of the river.
By the early 1830’s, the area had become more organized and started to look like a real settlement. A school was built on the east side of the river. Because most of the people and school children lived on the west side of the river and the Ottawa were still on good terms with the Europeans, some members of the Ottawa tribe would transport the children from the west side of the river, over to the east side of the river where the school was, this was done using canoes. A year after the construction of the school, the population of the area was at about 50 people. This is when a doctor came to the area, supplied with equipment.
Just a couple years later in 1838, the land was officially incorporated as a village and encompassed around three quarters of a mile of land. The population of the area quickly grew from 50 people to over 1,500 in 1845 then encompassed around 4 miles of land. The population then grew to over 2,600 people when the Grand Rapids was voted to be incorporated from a village to a city. On May 2, 1850, Grand Rapids was declared as a city. The area soon became a promised destination for immigrants with over 120 Swedes gathering to the area in just one week alone.
Since then, the city of Grand Rapids took off with different industries being built. The first ever hydro-electric generator was put on the city’s west side in 1880. Almost 70 years later in 1945, the Grand Rapids was one of the first cities in America to put fluoride in their drinking water so that the resident’s teeth would not decay as easily when
drinking the water.
Climate
Grand Rapids has what is known as a humid continental climate. This means that there are large seasonal temperature differences. The summers in Grand Rapids can be warm to hot, and the winters freezing cold. Precipitation is normally broken up and distributed pretty evenly throughout the year. The city often experiences lake effect snow in the winter months. Because of this, it makes the Grand Rapids one of the snowiest cities in America with a whopping 80 inches of snow per year. The city has many activities, due to the many seasonal changes in the weather, the city has recreational activities for every occasion.
Grand Rapids, Michigan has a rich tattoo history. Featuring shops such as Wealthy Street Tattoo, Mos Eisleys, Magnum Tattooing, Love Tattoo, Gremlin Gallery Tattoos, and Anarchy Ink Tattoos, Grand Rapids is a great destination if you’re looking for some new ink. With a population of around 190,500, there are lots of potential customers for the parlors in town. Yelp currently lists 31 different shops when searching for “tattoo” in Grand Rapids. Google Places lists 160 different tattoo shops in the Grand Rapids area, which shows how competitive the city truly is. When doing research for your artist, we suggest not paying too much attention to price because quality is much more important when you’re going to be living with the artwork for the rest of your life.