The Wake

Directly above Sally’s Saloon and Eatery, Tool’s “10,000 Days” accompanies tattoo artist Trevor Kennedy as he works on a piece that has taken somewhere between 12 and 15 hours. The colorful sleeve on his client’s left arm started with a few stars about five years ago. Since then, Kennedy has been developing it into a masterpiece based on his client’s wish to have an original Van Gogh-like design covering his arm. The colors are still vibrant even after considerable exposure to the sun.

“This one’s kind of cool just because it’s a blast from the past,” Kennedy says. “It’s neat to see how nicely my work has held up in the sunlight.”

After he finishes drawing in part of the design freehand with a black marker, his client looks down at his arm.

“I love it,” he says.

Since Kennedy opened Steady Tattooing and Piercing on Washington Avenue in Stadium Village, it has quadrupled in size.

“It just fell into my lap,” Kennedy says. “I bought the shittiest tattoo shop in Minnesota, fired everybody, and changed the locks.” About a week later, Kennedy was freed of local competition as well. The city of Minneapolis changed its zoning laws for C2 businesses, which includes tattoo parlors, sex shops, massage studios, and strip clubs. These are the “undesirables,” as Kennedy calls them. Since Steady was grandfathered in it remains, while many other shops, some of which were operating without licenses, were shut down.

Before he bought Steady, Kennedy learned to tattoo at Minneapolis’ Inklab as an apprentice under Adam Ciferri in 1997. “I wanted to be a tattoo artist my entire life,” Kennedy says. “I knew early on that if I could draw for a living, in any capacity, that I would be happy. Most of the men in my family are bikers so I’m just guessing that’s where I got the idea.”

On a typical day, Kennedy comes in early, prepares mentally, gets the drawings ready, and then tattoos one person after another. He estimates that he has two to 10 customers per day, depending on the size of the pieces. For larger works, some clients sit under Kennedy’s needle for as long as four hours.

Steady Tattoo is a combination of street and custom shop, operating in association with Axis Body Modification. As a street shop there is an array of designs on the walls to choose from for fast, easy jobs. As a custom shop, it employs a handful of artists who tailor designs to each customer’s needs. Open until midnight daily, Steady provides the most extensive selection of designs in the Twin Cities.

Even when customers come in with their own designs, Kennedy usually modifies and improves them, working out the flaws. “They give me an idea and let me rock with it,” Kennedy explains. “So if someone wants to get their family crest or their cousin’s drawing of a duck on them they usually get sent to someone other than me. Some people come in and say here’s my arm, do the best tattoo you’ve ever done on it. When I have someone who trusts me that much, that’s a pretty cool thing, and the tattoos turn out that much better because I understand them.”

“I try to outdo myself with every tattoo. I look at it like archaeology. You dig and dig and dig until you find something. It’s not like whatever I barf out will be amazing. It’s tough to beat that last time, but that’s kind of the process that I’m in.”