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Ceremony Tattoo Society


Sitting in One Shot Coffee on a Monday afternoon, Gia Rose somehow simultaneously meets and defies every expectation you’d have of a seasoned tattoo artist: She’s mannered but still passionate, critical but still reverent, supremely confident but still humble. She has the quiet grace that can only be adopted by a cancer survivor. Above all else, she’s hyper-aware of what it means to be a modern reflection of a centuries-old industry, speaking with no reservations about tattooing’s holy marriage of business and art. Her career has spanned several cities (Portland, New Orleans, and Philly among them), a handful of tattoo shops (including a long-standing residency at Megan Massacre’s shop Grit & Glory in New York City), and over a decade of work.

Halfway through our nearly hour-long conversation, I was struck with a realization: Gia would be this candid with everyone. It doesn’t matter, in this moment, that I’m nearly as covered in ink as she is, nor that bits and pieces of our conversation will wind up in print. It’s that realization that propels her from being the face of a business to something much more vulnerable, and far more intimidating.

The path between her flourishing professionalism (she’s steadily booked three months in advance) and her humble beginnings is a long, winding one. Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Mich., Gia eventually ditched a life of riding trains around the country to take an authentic apprenticeship under an artist in Asheville, NC—something she’d never even considered until the she stumbled upon the opportunity. She learned the extreme fundamentals of the industry: Making needles and pigment, all while embracing the serendipity of her situation.

Looking into her drink coyly, she reflects on her time building her repertoire.

“I’ll always say it: Tattooing is a skill first, and an art second,” she said. “It’s a trade skill, like carpentry. You have to go through five years of just figuring out what the fuck you’re doing before you can, you know…” she trails off, laughing. “There are tattooing schools, but they’re jokes.”

For an artist born, raised, and trained outside of Philadelphia, Gia has boiled down her perception of the area’s tattooing scene to two very basic concepts: it has a heavy emphasis in American traditional style, and it’s predominantly male-driven.

“There were artists in Portland who told me to be careful of Philly,” she said. “Philadelphia is uniquely insular against the commercialization of tattooing. Or it has been for a long time, because it’s been protected by this nostalgic, mythical, traditional ideals.”

She isn’t wrong—Fishtown’s chief tattoo factory, Art Machine Productions on Frankford Avenue, boasts an all-male regular artist roster on their website (they are featuring two female guest artists between April and July of this year). Four out of those five artists mention the traditional or “old school” style as either their predominant strength or something they are comfortable with.

Gia initially worked at Art Machine alongside owner and operator, Tim Pangburn. It’s easy to be impressed by the sheer magnitude of the space: All 3,200 square feet are well lit, comfortable, and positively gorgeous. She speaks fondly of her time there, calling it a “gap that needed to be filled” in Philly’s tattoo culture, but in the name of personal progression, it became clear that she would eventually need to part ways with the shop.

Her departure from Art Machine was a mixture of newfound financial strain and a sudden personal tragedy: Gia was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cervical cancer in early 2014. Crippled by a lack of insurance and a rocky relationship with her shop, she turned to fundraising to battle her illness. $30,000 in donations later, Gia is cancer-free. The demanding process of recovery, while not lost on her, doesn’t seem to be slowing her down in the slightest.

Enter Ceremony Tattoo Society: A rebirth and rebranding of everything “Gia Rose.” It’s her trophy project; it’s a way to bridge the gap between every talent she’s honed and every obstacle she has faced. Ceremony will be an outlet for artists and small business owners to collectively pool their resources, improve their trades, and essentially share their good fortune. One of the main attractions boasted by the new co-op is the arsenal of overseas artists that will be brought to Philly for exclusive residencies. Through years of networking, Gia developed a repertoire and friendship with countless European tattoo artists, who were, until now, largely unavailable to potential clients in the United States.

“Typically, yeah, it would be very hard to break into Philly,” Gia said, “but as time change, those barriers are eroding, and more bureaucratic entities are seeing that there’s money to be made in tattooing…so it changes. Slowly.”

Her biggest desire is to maintain a space that is less restrictive and allows artists to freely float in and out as their work demands, allowing past and future clients to stay hooked on what Ceremony has to offer. Walk-up shops (she refers to them as “pick-and-stick-ems”) are on the decline, she claims – and it’s hard not to believe her. Every one of Gia’s clients seeks her out long beforehand, taking time to explore the nuances of their chosen artwork without needle touching skin.

“There’s always going to be a split between progress and evolution,” she said, without a hint of jadedness clouding her dialogue. “There’s a line between the younger generations pushing their model forward and the older generations hanging on to their respect.”

It’s no surprise that such a perceptive business owner is also extremely conscious of the social implications that allow places like Ceremony Tattoo Society and Art Machine to exist. As quick as Gia was to laugh at the “seedy underbelly” of the tattoo industry, she also tackled the hazy topic of gentrification and population increase without blinking an eye. There’s a certain amount of moral restitution that needs to happen as a business in a freshly repopulated neighborhood, and the best that people, that true artists, can do is to incessantly find ways to improve their home. Negotiating a truce between the new and the old isn’t just something to tolerate with grinding teeth: it’s something to embrace.

“I welcome any change,” she said, and that tiny hint of reckless abandon is exactly what will make her name a staple in Philly’s tattooing world for years to come.

Ceremony Tattoo will be open to the public on August 14, 2015. Gia Rose can be contacted for booking by appointment at her website, www.giarosetattoo.com. She maintains an enthusiastic social media presence at @giarose and @ceremonytatoosociety on Instagram and @giarosetattoo on Twitter.
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