We recently connected with T Valadares and have shared our conversation below.

Hi T, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

After working for shops and having multiple terrible experiences with shop owners who don’t value their clients or co-workers I decided to take a huge step and find a space of my own. During all this time I was also learning a lot about myself and wanted to create a space where everyone, especially from the LGBTQ+ community, felt comfortable and cared for. During this time it happened to be right as the Covid-19 Pandemic began. As everything was shut down I found a space on Main Street in Hudson that was exactly what I was looking for. It needed some work and I signed the lease not knowing when we could even open. For the next 2-3 months I renovated and created Blvck Rose Tattoo. We are an immigrant and trans owned tattoo shop in Central Mass. Our staff are primarily queer and the shop is accessible to everyone. We are known for being trauma informed, fat friendly, queer friendly and BIPOC friendly. Traditionally, tattoo shops have a bad rep and are known for being “rough around the edges”. Most are geared towards cis white men and are uncomfortable to anyone who doesnt identify as such. It’s important to me to change that stigma. I love tattooing, I love the tattoo community and I want to share all the beautiful things that tattooing brings to people.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up in Massachusetts but was born in BrasiI. Ive always felt like the black sheep of every aspect of my life growing up. Art was always something I used to cope with life, it was safe and comforting to me. I ended up going to a business school even though my dream was to go to art school and become an artist, I was unhappy with where my life was going at 19. So I made the huge decision to drop out of college after finding an apprenticeship. I worked 7 days a week in the shop for free to learn the craft. I spent every day watching multiple artists and asking every question I could. I drew every single day. I learned about every aspect and even had the opportunity to learn how to fix/build machines. I took the good and the bad and created what worked for me. I saw what the tattoo community was lacking and tried to bring that to light. Instagram was a huge part in my brand and growing my clientele more organically rather than by word of mouth. I made sure to give every client the best experience regardless of how big or small their tattoo was. Small things have made a huge impact, such as telling a client “Im going to start with a small line and you let me know how you feel” or finding ways to make your actions known before you do them. Consent is a huge part of my work. I am honored to be working with peoples bodies in such a personal way. I started with American Traditional tattoos and it’s still what I do most. Currently my focus is American Traditional blackwork. I want to not only give my client a great tattoo, but one that will stand the test of time. The importance of knowing how your work will heal and look 20 years down the road is huge. A lot of “tattooing” nowadays is based on trends on the internet and are not realistic in what will hold up over time.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When we first opened in the midst of a global pandemic, Blvck Rose was a private studio with just two artists including myself. I didn’t want to open a shop that I was considered the “boss”. My co worker Dylan (@dr.crimeboy on Instagram) was someone I worked with at a past shop and we shared a pretty traumatic experience during our time there. I was lucky enough to share a space with him and it brought a sense of security just having the two of us. After about a year I met Rhys (@rhys_piercer on Instagram) and offered him a job. We did not have the room for an extra body so I did what I considered almost unthinkable to me at the time, we expanded the shop to the space next door. After a year of being a private studio and strictly just tattooing, we opened up the second space to include more tattoo artists and a piercer. At this point we’ve become a walk in shop offering a variety of piercings, high end jewelry options and various different styles of tattooing. We are now almost 3 years old and have thrived during a time that was pretty detrimental to a lot of small businesses.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

No matter what we do at the shop our goal is to always give back and make tattooing more accessible. We are constantly donating to small businesses, raffles and organizations that are important to us. We’ve held flash days for charities and donated an estimated 15k in the last 3 years. We’ve supported local organizations like BAGLY, Trans Resistance MA, Horizons for Homeless Children and other small businesses around our area. We’ve also supported more national organizations like the National Network of Abortion Funds. Being a queer shop is important to us to show up and be visible. It’s important to us to give back to our community and support marginalized groups of people. Most of our clients are also queer or allies and also share these values. We’re transparent about who we are and what we stand for and this has been our reputation throughout. We love and respect our clients!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.blvckrosetattoo.com
• Instagram: @blvck.rosetattoo
• Facebook: facebook,com/blvckrosetat/

Image Credits
Jullian Valadares @byjullian Kenzie Magnan @kmagzphoto Molly Brooke @mollybrooke_photography