By Courtney Dentch
For tattoo artists Derrick Verley and Ville Murdock, covering flesh with their intricate designs is just one way to continue doing what they love best: Drawing.
The pair wield their ink-filled needles at One Stroke Tattoo, at 106-36 Sutphin Blvd. in Jamaica, the parlor that Verley opened last year. Piercings are also available at the storefront shop, which doubles as a gallery for Verley’s airbrushed paintings.
Verley, who lives in Jamaica and grew up in Cambria Heights, started drawing at a young age as a hobby, he said.
“My mother just gave me a pen and a piece of paper and that’s what I did,” he said.
Although he took advertising courses at the New York City Technical Institute, Verley never received any formal art training, he said.
“I can look at something — a picture or whatever — and learn how to draw it.”
While Verley worked as an artist, jumping from job to job designing brand logos and album covers, a friend started teaching him how to turn his sketches into tattoos, opening a new avenue of artistic work, he said.
“When you’re an artist, you do jobs here and there — we call it road work — it’s hard,” Verley said. “I figured this is the next best thing. It’s so popular. I get to be constantly creative.”
For Murdock, who is still apprenticing at One Stroke, taking up tattooing was a way to have a larger audience for his work, he said.
“If you draw on paper, everyday no one will see it,” said Murdock, who grew up in Jamaica. “If you tattoo it on someone, it’s out there all the time.”
Verley spent about five years inking tattoos at two parlors on Jamaica Avenue before he decided to open his own shop last year, he said.
“I felt like it was time for me to do my own thing,” he said.
And it was a good move, he said. One Stroke gets more than 50 customers a week in the winter, which is the slow season for tattoo parlors, Verley said. As the weather warms into the summer, business usually doubles, he said.
A large part of the traffic at the parlor comes from repeat customers, Verley said. A number of people who got tattoos from him at his previous shops followed him to his new location, he said.
“Most customer are loyal to people who treat them well,” Verley said. “After I opened here, people started coming in saying ‘I found you!’”
Part of that loyalty is a response to Verley’s honest approach. He sometimes tries to dissuade customers from getting visible tattoos on their necks or hands that may prevent them from holding employment, or from tattooing the names of lovers in case the relationships prove to be fleeting, he said.
“A lot of people come in here and they want to get things, but then they can’t go out and get a job,” Verley said. “A lot of times we’re not supposed to care but we have to. I have to throw it out there for them to hear because no one else is.”
Verley is also licensed with the city to be a tattoo artist, and he protects his customers by sterilizing all the equipment, he said.
As for Verley and Murdock, both have tattoos running up and down their arms, many of which they drew themselves, they said.
“It’s a passage of showing how good you are if you can do it on yourself,” Verley said.
Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com, or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.
