![]() ![]() ![]() “We just sat there and were like, ‘What do we do?’” “We woke up one morning with 400 emails about tattoos,” Rose recalled. In January 2021, Rose began making videos on TikTok – a platform that brought a real boom to her business. Little did she know that the shop would become so busy that she would need to promote Evans to shop manager. To help Rose sort through her own tattoo requests, she hired Haylee Evans as an assistant. Black Amethyst was busy before Rose started posting content on social media, but once it gained traction online the amount of attention the artists received became unmanageable. The effectiveness of these fundraisers is in part because of the shop’s popularity. I can't make a community center, but I can give you a day of my life and all of the supplies it costs to do this.” “We usually do on one of our days off so that we're not affecting our regular client schedules,” Rose explained. More: 'A queer renaissance in Canton': New LGBTQ+ nonprofit looks to put down roots in Canton Something in the ballpark of $3,000 was also donated to Queer in Canton, a group founded by Abby Henry and Curstynn Marks that is dedicated to serving as a community resource for LGBTQ+ people in Stark County. More: Change Agent: Giovonni Santiago helping LGBT youth 'feel valid with who they are' META Center Inc., founded by Giovonni Santiago, is an Akron-based nonprofit organization supporting transgender and gender-nonconforming youth from ages 7 to 19. More: Just a Dad From Akron to open storefront in Akron's Kenmore neighborhood Lambert’s business is a clothing company that sells apparel with messages about changing to become a better person. The shop has donated around $4,000 to help Kenny Lambert, owner of Just a Dad From Akron, buy toys for the Christmas drive he organized in 2020. Since the Akron location opened, Rose and her employees have held tattoo fundraisers for various businesses and nonprofits supporting the LGBTQ+ community in both Summit and Stark counties. Rose’s ambition and tenacity became Black Amethyst, a shop decorated as though a thrift store and a plant shop had a child with an oddity vendor that is staffed entirely by female and non-binary tattoo artists. Like this woman is half-naked and being very vulnerable, can you go away?” “The things would say to my clients or if my client was getting her tattooed, they would make it a point to come over and talk to us. “My style is really feminine, so I have primarily female clientele,” Rose said. She also wanted to work somewhere that would not put them under unnecessary scrutiny. I didn’t want my clients to feel like that.”Įnsuring that her clients were not intimidated was not Rose’s only concern. The old '90s biker shop was always super intimidating to me. “Walking into a tattoo shop can be intimidating, because you’re either afraid of needles some are rude. “I wanted a place where people felt comfortable and not scared,” she said. Rose’s reason for opening her own company was simple: She could not find a tattoo shop with the work atmosphere she desired that would hire someone at her experience level. The small business grew rapidly and relocated to its current spot on Manchester Road in Akron in 2019. In 2018 Rose moved back to Akron and opened a second tattoo shop of the same name in Wadsworth. So obsessed, in fact, that after only two years of working in the industry (18 months of which were as an apprentice) she opened Black Amethyst Tattoo Co. in Shelby, Ohio. “Here's a way to express your art that could actually be a lucrative job. “When I got my first tattoo, I remember sitting in the chair and it just hit me: If you can learn how to paint on people, they can't order that on Amazon, and they cannot buy that at Walmart,” Rose said. It was tattooing that she ultimately fell for - her knight in shining armor of sorts. Rose held on to that dream until the tail end of 2013 when she realized that it simply wasn’t economically feasible. After that epiphany, she searched for a new profession to redirect her creative skills. Once upon a time, painting was Erica Rose’s dream job.
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