Seattle Tattoo Emporium

TLCL Tattoo Importing was founded in 1941 by Danny Danzel. We are the oldest, longest open for business tattoo shop in the area. We have this amazing collection of tattoo history that we have available for people to look at. Most of it has come with the shop because we've had so many tattooers work here over the years. We have Percy Waters Flash here. These are from the 30s. This is what Danny had picked up from Percy when he finished learning how to tattoo from Percy Waters in Detroit. Over here we have a smattering of Danny's flash that he had hand painted himself. A lot of times people come in and they were So we have to prepare it to get it ready to tattoo. Sometimes people come in and they're Then we draw them from our minds. I try to do realism, black and gray. I really We used to have a flash challenge. So we would try to make one of these every two weeks, make it a contest among us. So we would encourage drawing and improvement for all of us and we would put money in a pot. Then we would have a rotation and we would choose who would make the best and he would win all the money. Tattooing is also another media. To draw with a needle, draw over a skin. It's Tattoos are alive because skin is moving, it's changing. We have to be careful and plan it good because sorting type of imagery would work really good on tattoos and some other type not as well.