OWNER and head artist at Red Desert Ink, Jay Farquhar, hopes his tattoo studio on Argent Street becomes a business passed down through his family line for generations.
“I have children and would presume they’re going to do this too, so long term I’m planning to have the studio here for the next few generations,” he said.
Farquhar, who was born and raised in Broken Hill, said he never considered starting a tattoo studio in his hometown until a friend in Europe suggested it.
“I was going back and forth to Europe, and I had a friend over there who was a tattooist and was teaching me,” he said.
“The plan was to stay over there but he said, ‘is there a tattoo studio where you’re from?’ And I said ‘no, not really, most people get them done at home sort of thing.’
“And he said ‘Well you should be doing that’. So, it wasn’t even really my idea!”
Though Farquhar was creative as a child and was encouraged by his parents to make art, he said he never sought out a profession in the creative fields.
“It just kind of happened after working for other people, doing trades and things, I was like oh if I can do 90 hours for someone else in their business, I can do that for my own.”
Farquhar currently employs two full-time tattoo artists and said others often visit.
“We have artists that come and go, and a couple of permanent artists and apprentices,” he said.
He said though there’s been a handful of tattooists in town, he can’t remember a legitimate tattoo studio in town, even during his youth.
“Throughout my whole youth there were two places I can remember where they tattooed: a home studio out the south, and one in Oxide Street,” Farquhar said.
“But apart from that, nobody has ever had like a multiple artist studio, a legitimate kind of thing, whereas we try to allow space to have artists come in and specialise in what they do.”
He opened his shop on Oxide Street seven years ago, before relocating to an old mechanic’s workshop near the Junction on Argent a year ago, which he’s currently in the process of renovating.
Farquhar said he hopes to set up his business to last for decades at least.
As for those considering a tattoo, he warned of a few particularly painful spots for the uninitiated.
“Behind the knee, in the knee ditch, the mid rib and pelvis would be up there with the most painful places to get tattooed,” he said.
“Everything else is not so bad, you can deal with it, but those ones you’re definitely fighting through.”
