"Passion and Pride"

Sometime in the fall of 2013, five years into officially tattooing and struggling to "unofficially" manage a shop that had a fair reputation but was, at best financially barely keep- ing its nose above water, Adam 12 (Adam Elliott to his parents) was struck with an at once incredibly revolutionary, undeniably controversial, and unequivocally terrifying idea-- to open his own shop.

The notion was revolutionary because Adam is, admittedly, “cripplingly inadequate when it comes to the comprehension and execution of math”, something that could truly handicap an independent contractor in the business of tattooing, let alone the owner of a business. So, relying solely his instincts and desire for something better, and operating on nothing more than the sheer will to carve a better situation for himself and fellow artists, Adam along with business partner, firefighter Tony Squilla -- a tattoo enthusiast, but not an artist -- embarked on a quest to open a shop themselves.

Their mission statement: Do it our way!

Around this same time, Adam surrendered his life to Jesus Christ and put all his trust in The Lord through his devout acceptance of Apostolic Christianity. If not for his complete and utter faith that God had a Plan for his life through tattooing and would inform him at every turn, Adam says he may have taken another path. “It was integral. I knew a change needed to be made, but it was my faith in The Lord that guided me to opening a shop even with my lack of experience in life let alone in business, instead of say, simply quitting and trying to get hired as an artist somewhere else". And his faith paid off.

Now a mere six years later, Passion and Pride Tattoo is enjoying steady success and is home to three talented artists with room to employ three more!

Adam says his shop operates with transparency, accountability and teamwork. Without his clients Adam says, “we'd be starving artists, plain and simple". He believes, “a good artist creates a good tattoo, but a good team, between the artist and client-- truly caring for their vision and keeping honest lines of clear communication in high regard? That makes for GREAT tattoos! We love our jobs and that's only because we hold a true, sincere love for our clients. Involving them as much as possible is a wonderful way to ex- press love and demonstrate the unforgettable fact that without them and their wants and needs, we just will not succeed. It's an amazing thing really, and it reminds me daily, just how Loving God is and how overwhelming Blessed my squad and I are.

”My mantra, to the client is 'whatever you think is cool, is cool!"

He has one rule in the shop: “It's got to look cool! Everything else is a guideline because with art--real, dope art, especially in tattooing, it’s got to look cool! Nothing more simple than striving to make it look cool, ya know? Like the shirt, borrowing and interpolating the late, great David Bowie-- 'all we have is our love of love', and to us, how we demonstrate love? Well, love is tattooing."