Today we’d like to introduce you to Wolfe Ink.
Hi Wolfe, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Ever since I was a child, I had a tendency to draw. To my mother’s dismay, even on my walls with crayons in my childhood bedroom. I Learned more in high school and hung out with the nerdy comic book kids. After high school I decided to go to college at a private school called School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where I gained my BFA. Upon graduation, I worked for several different companies doing very entry-level work such as a gallery aid at the Society of Illustrators, an assistant at an artist repping firm, an assistant to a fine artist in the Soho area (Ben Schonziet) and graphic design/editors assistant work at a post-production house for movies, commercials and in house corporate videos. I started working in the club industry after my last job at the post-production house failed due to the company shutting down, sag strike at the time killed a lot of companies. The club life was exciting and paid really well. I was a dancer on Friday at Saturday nights at a male revue in Manhattan, one of many, then turned massage host when I realized there was more money to be made sitting with the ladies and giving them a back rub while they watched the show. Rather lucrative. After the show, I would head over to my bartending job at the Sound Factory in Manhattan which was one of the hottest after-hour clubs in the city. Again, very lucrative. So while all of this was happening I was in massage therapy school during the week studying to become, you guessed it, a massage therapist.
Time went on and I did well with the clubs and massage but I felt I needed something more stable. Something that would help me be more of service so I decided to become a police officer. I served my first seven years on patrol at the 5th precinct in lower Manhattan NYC. The Chinatown/Soho/Little Italy/Bowery area. After that, I worked for the crime scene unit called the Evidence Collection Team for six years. We were responsible for responding to crime scenes throughout lower Manhattan and photographing, interviewing collecting DNA and latent prints. Anything from burglaries to robberies, rapes, suicides, grand larcenies, GLA’s, overdoses, etc… I moved on from there to the Forensic Artists Unit, where I aided the Detective Bureau by creating composite sketches of criminals through descriptions from victims or witnesses, we also did age progressions and enhancements from corpse photos.
I retired in 2020 and moved to LA where I began to study the art of tattoo. Alongside portrait painting for commissions, I now make a living full-time as an artist. So my life has come full circle, I guess. Back to my roots. Finally settled with who I am.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Is it ever a smooth ride? We can talk for days. Just pick a time in my life and I’ll let you know an issue or hurdle that I needed to overcome. All good lessons at the end of the day I guess but do we ever feel that way when we are going through it?
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I love to do what I call journal work. It’s not in a book but on canvas or wood. I usually do either self-portraits or portraits of people who have touched my life in some way. I don’t know it at the time I’m doing it but down the road, there’s always an “ah ha” moment where I realize so that’s what I was going through at that moment. Best therapy I can think of. For me, it has cleared up some confusion or questions I have either about my past or where I’m going in the future. Also, and probably most important, it helps me to be present. Tattoo is like that as well but in a different way. I get into a flow when I tattoo someone and the world kinda goes away. I swear if I could I would do it for free all the time. It’s amazing therapy.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I try not to think too much about long-term goals. I have a soft idea of where I would like to be but that changes from time to time as well. Perhaps a new country or owning a tattoo shop. Maybe even seclusion in the woods where I can meditate and become one with nature. Who knows. I believe being present is the most successful path to a happy future and I do my best every day to remember that.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: the_wolfe_ink
