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Hi, my name is Dave Nielsen. Not too long after learning to walk and talk, I started to draw. They were crude drawings and no better than any other child’s, the difference is that I stuck with it like an addiction. By the time I reached high school, I knew I wanted to pursue art as a career.
I can remember seeing tattoos on my parent’s friends, my teachers and people of all walks of life. It always fascinated me. By the time I was sixteen I could wait no longer. I found out that a friend of mine had a cousin who did tattoos. My best friend and I hounded him until he tattooed us. My friend chose a skull and I ended up with a sea dragon. I was hooked.
Not too long after that we built a rotary tattoo machine. I put the first of several crude tattoos on one of my friends. I knew that if I really wanted to do this for a living I needed to learn from somebody, but I was too young and there weren’t any good tattoo studios in my area. I decided to put tattooing on hold for a while.
Several years and many parties later the opportunity for an apprenticeship came up. Needless to say, I jumped on it and made the move to Macomb, Illinois. The year was 1997. The shop will remain unnamed.
In March of 1999 another artist and I left the shop where I apprenticed for too many reasons to explain here. With the help of many friends, we opened our own shop, Emerald City. Together we built a reputation for good, clean tattooing and piercing. The stress of running the shop was too much for my partner. He moved to Colorado a week before our shop’s one year anniversary. This put a lot more stress on me, but I held it together.
At he end of that September my shop was broken into. The break in drove me into a depression like I had never known. I spent the next two weeks hiding in my apartment. I only came out to pick up the mail from the shop. With the encouragement of friends and clientele I replaced everything that was taken and went back to work. By the end of 2000 I knew I had to get out of Macomb.
In February of 2001 I came up here to Madison to visit my girlfriend and some other friends. I was also looking for work. The crew at Steve’s Tattoo were the friendliest I found in Madison. I went back to Macomb and spent the next few months preparing for my move.
In May of 2001 I made the move and have been living in Madison ever since. Working at Steve’s has been one of the best experience of my life. I don’t plan on going anywhere, so stop by and get tattooed or just take a look around and maybe say “Hi.”
Thanks for taking the time to learn a little more about me, and make sure to check out all the other artist’s bios.
Dave
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