Adam Stoner
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Tattooing has always been there, like stars have always been in the sky. But it was like the clouds covered them my whole life and then one day the stars showed themselves. – Stoner
I was born in Scottsbluff, Nebraska in 1987. I have been an artist my entire life. I have had the pleasure of knowing the road as a young man. I have lived primarily in the west. Even now no beach I can think of compares to the poetic dark crashes of the west coast. As a young Child I always felt like maybe I was a in a movie and the whole world contained cameras watching my every mood, how I reacted to all of it. Even as I got older I liked to think that maybe people could somehow tap into my sight and see what I see. I love the moments that I can reflect on, the beauty that this world gives freely everyday and all of us attempt to create. We have all had those moments when the sky stops us, when the street lights shine through the neighbor’s trees and the shadows shape the very feeling of summer nights. All the little moments I have witnessed in my life molded me and strongly influence how I design my tattooing. The details, just as details of a conversation between a friend may fade to blurs, so do some of the strong details I do in skin; relying on the overall shape to last the test of life.
When I think back, I have been around tattooing my entire life; watching my Father throughout the years filling up each arm. Drawing tattoos for anyone who would ask. I got my first tattoo when I was 21, and was asked to apprentice based on the tattoo I drew for myself. I left that opportunity before I got past sweeping the floor and took up the chance to open an art gallery and antique store. After the news of becoming a father I became a Bail Agent/Bounty Hunter. The next few years I spent time getting into different areas of art, such as painting for the first time and custom carving guitars.
In that time my music (Black Dali) took a huge leap and put me into contact with a fellow musician, Joshua Carlton, and his band Chiaroscuro. After seeing his art and the art of other artists Like Paul Booth, Aaron Cain, and Guy Aitchison; it inspired me again so I went down to his sister’s shop in my now home town Franklin, Indiana. Jamy (Carlton) Carreno and Pete Carreno owned the local Great American Tattoo Company. I remember back in those days I worked 14hrs a night, running on no sleep and I gathered a few paintings and guitars and brought them down to the shop. I think it’s hard when love so many moments, to pick out the ones that give you a road that would define you. I would have to say that was surely one of them. Seeing something inside me that I still don’t quite see I was given a chance to apprentice.
It was sometime mid March 2010, I was told to find someone to tattoo. Setting up my first machine, pulling my first line, smelling the green soap, all the things my nerves didn’t allow me to appreciate. Doing my first tattoo on my first day showed me a medium that was something I have been trying to understand ever since. So I worked from 12pm to 5pm at the shop, then from 5pm to 7-8pm at the bail office for months. Shortly after I left the bail office for a booth and we moved locations of the shop. After a year I was asked to be the manager as well as apprentice. A year and a half into tattooing a massive change was brewing. In Shelbyville, Joshua had decided to move to the West Coast leaving behind his location. So Jamy and I decided to take over the Great American Tattoo Company. I took the Shelbyville shop to the highest level I could. Almost a year into owning GATCO - Shelbyville, situations forced me to make the decision to close the location that we had originally set out to keep alive.
After that shop closed I am now on my own for the first time, opening my own shop from the ground up. In little over 4 days The Rue Morgue Tattoo Gallery has become my bower. I can’t thank the ones I know down to strangers that loved my art as a boy, enough. March 2013 will mark my third year as a tattoo artist.
Feel free to email Adam
Stoner@theruemorguetattoogallery.com
I was born in Scottsbluff, Nebraska in 1987. I have been an artist my entire life. I have had the pleasure of knowing the road as a young man. I have lived primarily in the west. Even now no beach I can think of compares to the poetic dark crashes of the west coast. As a young Child I always felt like maybe I was a in a movie and the whole world contained cameras watching my every mood, how I reacted to all of it. Even as I got older I liked to think that maybe people could somehow tap into my sight and see what I see. I love the moments that I can reflect on, the beauty that this world gives freely everyday and all of us attempt to create. We have all had those moments when the sky stops us, when the street lights shine through the neighbor’s trees and the shadows shape the very feeling of summer nights. All the little moments I have witnessed in my life molded me and strongly influence how I design my tattooing. The details, just as details of a conversation between a friend may fade to blurs, so do some of the strong details I do in skin; relying on the overall shape to last the test of life.
When I think back, I have been around tattooing my entire life; watching my Father throughout the years filling up each arm. Drawing tattoos for anyone who would ask. I got my first tattoo when I was 21, and was asked to apprentice based on the tattoo I drew for myself. I left that opportunity before I got past sweeping the floor and took up the chance to open an art gallery and antique store. After the news of becoming a father I became a Bail Agent/Bounty Hunter. The next few years I spent time getting into different areas of art, such as painting for the first time and custom carving guitars.
In that time my music (Black Dali) took a huge leap and put me into contact with a fellow musician, Joshua Carlton, and his band Chiaroscuro. After seeing his art and the art of other artists Like Paul Booth, Aaron Cain, and Guy Aitchison; it inspired me again so I went down to his sister’s shop in my now home town Franklin, Indiana. Jamy (Carlton) Carreno and Pete Carreno owned the local Great American Tattoo Company. I remember back in those days I worked 14hrs a night, running on no sleep and I gathered a few paintings and guitars and brought them down to the shop. I think it’s hard when love so many moments, to pick out the ones that give you a road that would define you. I would have to say that was surely one of them. Seeing something inside me that I still don’t quite see I was given a chance to apprentice.
It was sometime mid March 2010, I was told to find someone to tattoo. Setting up my first machine, pulling my first line, smelling the green soap, all the things my nerves didn’t allow me to appreciate. Doing my first tattoo on my first day showed me a medium that was something I have been trying to understand ever since. So I worked from 12pm to 5pm at the shop, then from 5pm to 7-8pm at the bail office for months. Shortly after I left the bail office for a booth and we moved locations of the shop. After a year I was asked to be the manager as well as apprentice. A year and a half into tattooing a massive change was brewing. In Shelbyville, Joshua had decided to move to the West Coast leaving behind his location. So Jamy and I decided to take over the Great American Tattoo Company. I took the Shelbyville shop to the highest level I could. Almost a year into owning GATCO - Shelbyville, situations forced me to make the decision to close the location that we had originally set out to keep alive.
After that shop closed I am now on my own for the first time, opening my own shop from the ground up. In little over 4 days The Rue Morgue Tattoo Gallery has become my bower. I can’t thank the ones I know down to strangers that loved my art as a boy, enough. March 2013 will mark my third year as a tattoo artist.
Feel free to email Adam
Stoner@theruemorguetattoogallery.com
