Relocation funds for Grimoire tattoo family

Hello everyone and thank you for taking the time to read our story

My husband and I have been living in Chattanooga for 2 years now enjoying the unique art scene and natural landscapes the city is known for. Tattooing a combined 10+ and 20+ years we have owned multiple studios and lived in many different locations. We’ve always done our best to accommodate as many people as possible- whether that be clients or struggling artists. It’s been an honor to meet so many creatives and professionals in the area and be welcomed by the community. One of our beliefs is your studio is only as strong as the relationships you have with your artists and clients. Too many “mentors” give up on their apprentices before they even begin, neglecting their duties to their mentees to nurture, guide, and provide for them. It’s a long standing joke among our artists and apprentices that we are a “tattoo shelter” adopting wayward artists from bad mentors and poor working conditions. I really couldn’t see us running a studio any other way. Everyone deserves the chance to realize their potential, and when you give them that freedom to use their talents everyone ends up stronger for it. This is also why we have always offered competitive booth rates and commission to all of our artists. We’re not in this for exploitive financial gain, we want people to grow and us to grow along with them.

So when we moved to Chattanooga our building felt like a blessing at first. It felt as though all the pieces were falling into place finally- especially after the shit show that was 2020. We secured the shop space and our house in short order, with much less hassle than any other move. Everything was lining up and all things pointed “Chattanooga”.

Along the way we slowly gained more and more people. Alex first, then Sara. We always think it’s going to be a small shop until find ourselves unable to say no to someone asking for help. We now have 6-7 artist at any given time working alongside us.

Fast forward a few months after opening and we already started having building issues. The “brand new” floors were already falling apart. After months of back and fourth we closed for nearly two weeks during the renovations. During this time our items in storage got broken into, vandalized, and stolen. So with time lost from an inoperable building we also came back to work recouping another loss. They slashed the tires on the moving van, broke sinks, stole tattoo supplies, furniture, and even left other items strewn about the parking lot that they couldn’t fit in their vehicle.

The next hurdle came a few months later when our ceiling began to leak for the first time. 3 roof “repairs” later and the problem persisted. Roll that in with the faulty plumbing issues, flooding, and every other follow up. The building continued to be neglected by our landlord.

Fast forward to now.

A few weeks ago our neighboring unit was flooded entirely during a rain storm. It was a literal waterfall running down their wall and causing damage to the structure and their belongings. This leak also trailed over to our space- soaking through ceiling tiles and flooding along the wall connected to their unit. We didn’t know it at the time but this event opened up a can of worms that would send us into a financial nightmare.

A few days after the floodgates opened up and their “clean up” crew evaluated the damage, the building inspector appeared. Every single repair, renovation, and addition to the building was done without a permit. The amount of violations culminated to the point where we are now… the building is set to be condemned in a months time. That leaves us with 30 days to find a new location, move all of our equipment, get inspected and reopen- including all renovations and requirements needed on the building in order to open.

Now we’ve never really done one of these for anything other than veterinary bills for our fosters but we are in a bind. There’s a wonderful location we’ve found but will need to forfeit renovation costs along with first and last months rent fall at once. The benefit is there’s enough room for everyone and possibly room for one or two more people down the line. We could easily downsize to a different location but our artists are relying on us. When we make promises we intend to keep them. What we are asking is if you have a little bit of funds to spare to make sure this move is as smooth as possible it would make a huge difference. It’s a 15k upfront investment so every little bit helps.

Everyone who donates 30$ or more gets a sticker pack featuring art from each person at the studio.

50$ or more you’ll get stickers plus a print(s)

100$ you’ll get stickers, prints, and a limited run t shirt design for our new location.

We will also be auctioning off pre paid hourly packs from DJ, Felix, Sara, Abby, Sean, Mike, Coleson, Alex and Amber. Please stay tuned to see what each artist has to offer as we will be posting details to our instagram [email redacted]moire.tattoo