Today we’d like to introduce you to Kane Magruder.
Hi Kane, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in a family of artist my father was an exceptional pastel artist. He always inspired and pushed my sister and I to embrace our creativity. So I started drawing and sketching out an early age 6 or seven years old. Over the years, I really developed a keen eye for cartoons and comics, and I could just draw them from memory and almost any scene. Fast forward about 15 years a very close friend of mine opened a tattoo shop and he would ask me to draw sketches for him to use as stencils, which he later would turn into flash tattoos at his shop. I was never really into tattoos or had a desire to be a tattoo artist at that time. Unfortunately, my path would have me going a different direction and I wound up incarcerated and while incarcerated rather than just wasting my time, I applied myself to my artistic craft, and I started to create very intricate, geometric, designs, and pictures with layers of different shading and from those pictures some of the other inmates asked me if I could tattoo them now again I had never tattooed, but I figured this would be a way for me to make some Money rather than having to rely on family plus it kept me out of trouble. So I began tattooing. I made my very first tattoo gun out of the motor of a CD player. I tied it to a bic Pen cartridge which I had cut in half and melted it to a short piece of metal, and I used guitar string as my tattoo needle which I sharpen by scraping it on a fingernail file. We would make our own ink by burning Vaseline like a candle and collecting the soot from the smoke. Which we would then add to rubbing alcohol and water to make ink. And some of the tattoos that I did using this homemade tattoo machine and this homemade Ink were some of the most beautiful designs I had ever seen. Fast forward again my artwork had gotten so good that the officers in the prison started bringing me real Tattoo ink into the prison. Many of the correctional officers would later after my release contact me for tattoos, but that’s another story. So shortly after my release from prison, I opened my very first Tattoo Parlor with the help and assistance of my high school sweetheart. Who is now my wife. And taking Art 2 the streets was born. Along the way I studied so many different styles and genres of tattooing and art that when it came time to do these tattoos, it felt natural, even if I had never done them. I have never taken an apprenticeship. I was never shown any specific way to Tattoo how deep to run a needle how to stretch the skin what type of skin does what what type of ointment you should use all of these things I picked up along the way from studying and digging in because I wanted to be the absolute best. I knew that it was going to be somewhat of an uphill battle because I was self talk and many people would look at me as being un refined plus I’m in a community that is saturated with tattoo shops and tattoo artist, but none of them look like me none of them are Black. None of them are minority business owners. None of them come from the environment and type of upbringing that I had. And this isn’t to say that they are any less of great tattoo, artist or artist in their own right, but I just feel like I bring something to the table that none of them have I Claude and fart and studied and grind my way to where I am right now. I can’t put it any other way and I believe one of the things that set me apart from so many of the shops and artists in my area is that when you come into my Tattoo shop we treat you like family you’re not a commodity you’re not treated like cattle where you’re just brought through turnstile branded we take your money and send you home. We sit down with you. We get to know you we engage with you because we want to have that level of intimacy of understanding our clients so we have that much more to pour into the piece that we’re doing. Now you can’t please everybody nobody is perfect, but the success that I have had in my Shop is because I listen to all of my clients. I listen to my critics I listen to my haters because even in a lie, there is a bit of truth you can learn from everything you encounter in life and one thing that I haven’t learned in this industry is, you are only going to be as good and successful as the people you surround yourself with and the time you commit to building people up. So when I tell people I’m not just a tattoo artist or a tattoo shop owner it’s the truth. I feel like I’m a counselor a therapist most days I feel like I’m my uncle to about 30 or 40 of my clients that come in to get tattooed and they don’t call them sessions. They’ll message me and say they need therapy. So that’s what pushes me that’s what drives me knowing that I’m not just providing good artwork but that I’m providing a service that I’m providing an outlet while giving the best damn tattoos and hangover Pennsylvania..
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely has not been a smooth road Simply because of what I look like in the area that I own my shop. I’m on minority business owner, and I know there are other black tattoo artist in the world, but I have not met another black tattoo artist in Hanover Pennsylvania yet and I’ve been here going on five years. Some of the other struggles was that some people around the shop just didn’t want another tattoo shop around so we had the police called on us for a Miriad of things and I knew that we were not going supported when our shop was broken into. I had footage of the person who did it, and the police still chose to do nothing. But that did not determine me. It actually added fuel to my desire to outlast everybody.
We’ve been impressed with Taking Art 2 the streets, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Taking Art to the streets as a Tattoo and Piercing Salon, we are the only black owned minority tattoo shop in Hanover Pennsylvania specialize in every genre of tattooing. Literally, I believe what I’m most known for is my semi realism work and my watercolor tattoos, and what sets me apart from others is I am approachable. I have designed my shops to feel like you’re at home when you are there. I also empower the artist that work for me to be business owners to learn the trade top to bottom so that they themselves can be shop owners one day. I tend to treat my artist more like business partners rather than employees. The thing I believe I want readers to know about my brand in my business is that it is homegrown and that it is developed and designed to support my community to bring joy to the community through the art that I create to bring people together to kill the stigma of the tattoo artist that has been in the United States for way too long, and also my readers will come to learn that a person should not be defined solely on the merits of their past discretions and faults. Because no one in this world is faultless or blameless and I believe we all want to do better and be better people and that’s what I strive to do every day. I try to help somebody every single day and that helps to bring joy in my life. It helps give me purpose.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I think what would be surprising to most people to know about me is that I never feel like I live up to the standard. I set for myself when I Tattoo, even though the peace may come out beautiful I feel like I’m such an overachiever that I pick apart my work, and it can sometimes be deflating where other people see a beautiful work of art I sometimes see it as a rough draft and I know that that’s not the case most of the time, but it comes from my upbringing and it’s something that I have been striving to push myself through and passed because I know that I’m an exceptional Artist. I know that I know my work flat on the head nine times out of 10.
Pricing:
- One hour session starts at $150 an hour
- Quarter sleeve tattoos are $400
- Half sleeves start at $750 depending on detail
- 3/4 sleeves are $1000
- And for a whole sleeve, the range is $1300-$1500 but it can go as high as $2000 depending on specific style detail and genre of the art
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.takingart2thestreets.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/dattattguy75
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/tattman.kam
- Yelp: https://yelp.to/cEeKsUx78K
