Jesse Smith (Image courtesy Loose Screw Tattoo)
It might be hard to spot Jesse Smith around town — unless you’re a reality TV fan and caught him on two seasons of “Ink Master,” streaming on Paramount+. But get yourself in a crowd and you’ll likely see his tattoo skills on the bodies of countless Richmonders. The artist, owner of Loose Screw Tattoo in Carytown and co-organizer of the Richmond Tattoo & Arts Convention, has made a sizeable impact on the style and attitude of the local tattoo arts scene.
Richmond magazine: When did you start tattooing, and what was the local style at the time?
Jesse Smith: I started out in 1998 in Petersburg at a shop called Altered Images. Since it’s a huge military town, all the flash [predesigned artwork] on the walls was really sailor and biker flash; I feel like the Richmond area was known for its American traditional and kind of gritty style. But you had a few people that were popping outside of that, going in new directions.
RM: What do you think has contributed to the evolution of Richmond’s tattoo scene the most?
Smith: The Richmond Tattoo & Arts Convention has done a lot for Richmond. Back when it first started in 1988, it was bringing the best tattoo artists in the entire world to right here in Richmond. Those tattoo artists would drop off tattoos with the clientele here, then those people would show them off to their friends, and their friends wanted tattoos like that, too. It has very much marinated this area with some of the best art in the world.
RM: How has your personal style evolved over time?
Smith: For the most part, I’ve been drawing the same cartoons since I was 12, but I’ve swayed and evolved and grabbed pieces from certain things and brought them into my work since then. My style is called “new school” [an illustrative aesthetic with exaggerated and cartoonish elements]. I’ve been trying to push into these other new genres that I’m creating; there’s one called “dark new school,” and one is called “toxic new school.” They’re like subgenres that merge specific themes into what I do.
RM: Is there a certain style or trend that’s everywhere in the city right now?
Smith: At least in my shop, the style that’s really been amped up lately is this fine-line stipple work. The artist runs their machine really slow, and they use a really small needle, and then they graze it so you can actually see each individual spot. People want these small black and gray pieces that are both really detailed and really simple at the same time.
RM: Is Richmond considered a great tattoo city?
Smith: I think that, per capita, Richmond’s tattoo scene is insane. Compared to big cities like New York, the size and the quality of our tattoo scene surprises people, but it’s because we have so many passionate collectors and great artists. It’s like, why the heck is someone in Poland hearing about tattoos in Richmond? And the reason why is that we attracted this amazing talent, all because of the gritty, lowbrow art scene that we have here.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
