Summer, Creativity, and Life at Arcane Tattoo Guild

Hey everyone!

I'm heading off to the beach for a few days and, as usual, my brain is already thinking about tattoos. Lobsters, crabs, seashells, slushies, painted ladies houses, weird little beach treasures—you know, the important things.

I hope this summer is helping recharge your creativity too. Life moves fast, and sometimes the best thing we can do as artists is step away for a moment, gather inspiration, and come back with fresh ideas.

Speaking of ideas...

Arcane Tattoo Guild has been growing! Adam and I recently brought another artist into the Guild. Spencer! Check him out on our webpage or his Instagram which means there are now three artists with ADHD bouncing ideas off the walls at all times. It's chaotic. It's exciting. It's probably a fire hazard.

One thing we've been working hard on is expanding the creative side of the shop beyond tattoos. We want Arcane Tattoo Guild to be a place where artists can explore whatever inspires them, whether that's paintings, prints, stickers, shirts, sculptures, candles, or some completely unhinged project that hasn't been invented yet.

When you purchase prints, stickers, shirts, or any of the other artwork we create, you're directly helping fund that creativity. Art supplies aren't cheap. Equipment isn't cheap. Learning new skills isn't cheap. Every purchase helps us experiment, improve, and continue creating the work that eventually finds its way onto your skin.

In other words, you're helping fuel the Guild.

We've also started dedicating the last Friday of every month to Game Night! After business hours, we'll be hanging out, playing games, painting miniatures, battling each other in Mortal Kombat, getting way too competitive over board games, and generally building the kind of creative community we've always wanted to be a part of.

My son is already trying to recruit Pokémon trainers. And would like to learn magic. If anyone's interested.

If you've been looking for an excuse to stop by and meet some fellow nerds, this is it.

Speaking of handmade things, we're currently running a T-shirt giveaway!

What makes these shirts special is that Adam made them himself. He hand-carved the design and hand-printed every shirt. Each one takes time, effort, and more patience than I personally possess. We may eventually move into screen printing, but right now I absolutely love the handmade linocut-print feel they have. They're rough around the edges in all the right ways and feel like something made by actual human hands instead of a machine.

We're incredibly proud of how they've turned out.

The funny thing is that we're already running out of space.

Honestly, I knew that would happen.

Every week we come up with another project, another display idea, another event, another piece of artwork we want to make room for. For now, we're making it work.

We may be the tattoo shop people accidentally mistake for a doctor's office, tucked away in our little corner of Macungie, but inside you'll find a group of artists doing our best to make cool things, support each other, and create meaningful artwork for the people who trust us with their stories.

Thank you for supporting Arcane Tattoo Guild. Thank you for collecting our art, wearing our shirts, hanging our prints, and allowing us to create for a living.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some beach-themed tattoo ideas to obsess over.

See you all soon.

-Quinn