Daily Ink

Colorado tattoo artist Nate Stephens has been getting creative since his career was put on hold due to the COVID-19 stay-at-home order. The shop Stephens works at, Marion Street Tattoo, has been closed for nearly a month due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Denver, according to The Denver Channel. With Stephen's wife a stay-at-home mom, his income is the only one they have. Stephen said this to The Denver Channel: "If I'm not tattooing someone then no money is coming to our family." He decided to make money by turning his kitchen table into a place to create T-shirt designs that relate to COVID-19. One of the shirts pays tribute to the nurses who are putting their lives at risk to help others and pulls inspiration from a tattoo design that became popular during WWII. Stephens is selling the shirts online and giving 20% of proceeds to support healthcare workers. Check out the original article Here

After COVID hit and the world I knew rapidly evolved into the one we now live in, I had to really look at my list of priorities and see which ones were still priorities during this period of "the new norm" and which ones just didn't stack up any more. I had to find a way to help support my beautiful family while I couldn't tattoo, I needed an outlet to channel my creative energy into to keep from going stir crazy, and I as the days passed I discovered that I really wanted a way to contribute the front line workers who where putting it all on the line for the health and safety of others. Not often in life do you run into the issue of having three seemingly separate problems that can all be solved to some degree with one solution, but this happened to be one of those rare occasions. It has been a crazy, scary, and down right exciting ride so far and I just hope that I can continue to help great causes while doing something I love... no matter where the world takes us next.