We were lucky to catch up with Martini Duran recently and have shared our conversation below.

Martini , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

Being a business owner is nothing short of rewarding, however I would be lying to you if I said it was all sunshine and rainbows! The death of my business partner/ father of my child really set me back a ways. Despo0ndent and depressed, I really felt like there was no where to turn to with the only option being to give up and get a regular job. I craved normality, I craved peace in which I had not found in any corners or any avenues I was searching for. Time and time again I thought about giving up, but we built and grew this business from the ground up so giving up was never an option. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and decided that in order to keep things running, I had to KEEP GOING. I was not about to let my partners blood sweat and tears go to waste, and with the help of my best friend Amber, we rebranded, rebuilt, and used the very foundation of my partners life work to create something beautiful, something intimate, something inspiring: that is Houses of the Holy Tattoos, where every client that comes in here is treated like family.

Martini , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am the Owner of Houses of the Holy Tattoos, located in the beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado. From the moment I could pick up a pencil I yearned to be an artist. It wasnt until I was a teenager that I was inspired by tattoos (everyone at my alternative school had ones!) I knew then that I wanted to put ink into skin and create beautiful, tantilizing, thought provoking artwork. My apprenticeships were not easy as I was plagued by the death of my father so my artwork and my work ethic suffered tremendously. I fell hard, I used drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism to escape which caused me to not take my craft as serious as I would have liked too. It took me years and years to pick myself up and get well enough to take my dream job, my career, seriously, and I am so glad I did. All the time it took was worth it because now I am a business owner, who specializes in color portraits, horror, cartoon, (and some non conventional) style of tattoos! I want everyone that walks into Houses of the Holy to know that they will be listened too, taken seriously, and treated with the utmost love and respect. When you’re here, you’re family, and I want everyone too know that! I am so proud of the progress I’ve made and I want everyone that comes in to be comfortable enough to share their stories too while getting any types of artwork etched into their skin.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think one lesson I had to unlearn was trying to reach perfection. Salvador Dali once said “Have no fear of perfection, you will never reach it” and that did NOT register to me until way later in my career. Once you reach a certain milestone, thats it, theres no where to go. To be fine with where your at and say “I’ve made it, this is good enough for me” is to be complacent and that is something that I have no interest in. I want to grow! I want to be in a constant state of evolving and learning the newest techniques, styles, and applications. I used to be very in my head as a young artist (I had a very inflated ego) and I have had many of instances in which I was so rightfully humbled, I am grateful that I have this outlook now because I did NOT like the person that I was a couple years ago.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think the most prominent and telling story that illustrates my resilience is dealing with the death of the father of my child/business partner and the death of my mother within a 6 month period. The end of 2022-2023 was very dark for me. I felt like a shell of a human being. My crys for help fell on deaf ears, I felt so alone and scared. How was I going to go on? How was I going to parent? How was I going to run a business BY MYSELF? By the time I tried to get back into the swing of things I found out I was pregnant and my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer. I couldn’t have felt more lost. That was it, that was the final nail in the coffin, but the smiles of my daughter and listening to the heartbeat of the little miricle growing inside of me brought me back to life. I had to keep going, I had to move forward, myself and my children depended on it and I am so glad I am standing here today instead of throwing in the towel.

Contact Info:

• Website: Houses of the Holy Tattoos (you can find us on google!)
• Instagram: @tini_tattini
• Facebook: Martini Josephine Houses of the Holy Tattoos
• Other: Tik Tok: @tini_tattini