NDER THE GUN

Storytelling through skin art

Everyone has a story to tell, and most people offer hints of their personal history in the way they dress, their home décor, the car they drive or the way they carry themselves. For tattoo enthusiasts, it’s all in the ink: The portrait of a favorite pet, the rose for a beloved grandmother, the names of one’s children. Even the regrettable gecko tattoo from spring break ’96 has a story to tell. “The tattoo culture in Dallas is very strong,” says artist Maria Sena, who recently opened Electric Eye, a tattoo studio in Oak Cliff with her partner, Caleb Barnard. “People in Dallas, they’re like collectors.” Some of us hang paintings on the wall; some prefer art on skin.

Sometimes older people don’t appreciate tattoos, but Stephanie Adelina has one that often catches the attention of the Greatest Generation.

The tattoo artist got a red Pegasus on her upper arm from her mentor when she was an apprentice. She wanted it to show her hometown pride, and she later learned the profundity of Dallas’ red-neon Pegasus. “I didn’t know this story when I got the tattoo,” she says. “But apparently, when soldiers were returning from World War II, they would see that red dot in the skyline, and they knew they were home.”

Adelina’s career as a tattoo artist has taken her all over the world, but she always represents Dallas with that striking tattoo.

The Oak Cliff native started her tattooing career in the worst way.

“I fell into tattooing right when ‘Miami Ink’ got really popular,” she says, referring to the seminal reality TV show about tattooing.

She was 19 and had just dropped out of art school in Canada after realizing her Arts Magnet education had taught her well enough.

Arts Magnet Mafia

She was such a talented painter that her then-boyfriend encouraged her to tattoo him. So she ordered a tattooing gun online, “like you should never do,” she says.

But that was the start of a globetrotting career.

She practiced on friends and family until Deep Ellum-based artist Jacob Lopez gave her an apprenticeship based on her painting portfolio. It didn’t take her long to get a feel for the craft of buzzing art onto skin.

In fact, she prides herself in having a light touch.

“Having a gentle approach is what I’m about,” she says.

In 2012, Adelina applied for an Australian work permit. She flew over and got a job at the Australia minimum wage of about $18 an hour, selling orthopedic shoes to old ladies, she says. On her days off, she tattooed.

She flew to Malaysia and then India where she worked as a guest artist at what she says is the country’s best tattoo shop, Devilz Tattoo, in Dehli.

“I was supposed to be there for a week, and I stayed two months,” she says.

She sometimes worked 12-hour days in the Dehli shop and would make about $100 for the whole day (compared to $125 per hour that she charges at her live/work studio in Deep Ellum).

Even though she didn’t seek out a spiritual experience in India, Adelina says, she found one anyway. It’s her favorite country in the world, she says. And a tattooing pal from the Delhi shop is expected to fly over later this year as a guest artist in her studio.

Adelina’s tattooing style is the same as her painting style. Her tattoos are bright and vivid. She recently tattooed realistic images of tomatoes and onions on a chef’s arm. And she has been doing tattoos that look like watercolor paintings.

Tattooing a way to be well paid as an artist and collaborate on artwork that is intensely personal to the artist and client, she says.

“I’m really just an art-school nerd who kind of fell into this,” she says.

She credits Arts Magnet for a stellar arts education, and she continues to work closely with the school. In June, she helped chaperone Arts Magnet students on an art tour of Italy.

“I love that school, and I owe everything to it,” she says. “It’s like the Marines; they break you down and build you back up. It was so hard and such an amazing school.”

Upon returning to the states, Adelina figured she would move somewhere else New York, Los Angeles, who knows? But when she arrived in Dallas, she felt at home.

Adelina’s wanderlust runs deep, but traveling made her realize where her home truly is. She and her roommate, artist Samantha A. McCurdy, are working on renovating the first floor of their Deep Ellum building. But Adelina, now 27, says she’d like to buy a house someday in Beckley Club Estates, where her mom lives.

“Oak Cliff is home,” she says. “Plus, the Mexican food. I missed it so much.”