Artist gives clients new chance with free cover of hate symbols
If you asked Billy White, he’d say tattoos saved his life.
So after he watched a documentary on the August 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman was struck and killed by a car and 19 people were injured, he decided to spread his own version of love.
White has offered free tattoos to cover up old hate images, such as tattoos representing the Ku Klux Klan, swastikas and rebel flags, for about a year. He has covered up between 20 and 30 tattoos so far, he said.
“I think we owe more to tattooing and to society, to use our tool and our ability to do something more positive,” he said.
White’s shop, Red Rose Tattoo in Zanesville, has four staff members and a consistent rotation of guest artists. The parlor is decorated in images of tattoos, stickers and pop culture memorabilia. A pack of Newport cigarettes sits on a dividing wall. Nobody in the shop smokes Newports; the pack is there in memory of a late friend.
A tattoo gun’s metallic buzzing echoes through the shop as the artists share their craft.
One customer, Devin Hendrix, had a tattoo of a rebel flag on his chest covered up with a large rose. He originally got the tattoo in honor of his brother-in-law, who he said had cerebral palsy and was a rebel in every sense. But because of the flag’s connotation and after several confrontations, he decided to have the tattoo covered.
“It took on a life of its own,” he said of his original tattoo. “I wanted Billy to do something with love.”
Hendrix proposed to his wife with 12 roses, he said. At the time, he took one rose out of the bouquet and vowed to love her until that last rose died. The rose he picked out was plastic.
That story is one reason why he picked a rose for his cover-up.
White, 33, said he was studying art education at Ohio University before he dropped out. At 19, he went into a local tattoo shop and asked whether they were hiring, and the rest is history.
“I kinda knew this was it,” he said.
But tragedy came his way: His parents died 49 hours apart of long-term illnesses when he was 25, and he found himself on the path of alcohol and drug abuse. He got tattoos on his face like “broken” on one side of his jaw and “ruined” on the other.
He grew up poor, he said, and tattooing gave him the money and the means to travel with his kids and support his family.
“It’s provided me every little thing in life that’s been worth a crap,” White said.
Tattoos and his youngest daughter saved his life, he said. Thinking of the 7-yearold, Fallon, he began to cry.
“It was like, man,” he said, gesturing with his hand and making an explosion noise like his mind was blown. “You’ve got to get your shit together.”
He started covering up tattoos at no cost, which attracted the local media.
That’s how documentary filmmaker Cy Dodson, a Zanesville native, heard about White. He spent a weekend recording and a week editing his 12-minute documentary, “Beneath the Ink,” that won two audience awards at the Dances With Films festival in Los Angeles.
The awards, Dodson said, are “almost too good to be true.” Despite them, he’s still working to perfect the film.
“When people watch it, they see someone who’s not afraid to step out and talk about what you believe in,” Dodson said.
Red Rose Tattoo shop manager Paige Natalie said working in the shop is an adventure every day. White is a driven person, she said.
“I think in today’s society, there are a lot of different opinions, and a lot of those clash,” Natalie said. “He’s opening a dialogue between two sides.”
White said he’s hopeful for the future. He’s seen other tattoo shops do similar things and doesn’t think it will stop soon.
And those tattoos on his jaw?
“I don’t feel like that anymore,” White said.
Red Rose Tattoo shop manager Paige Natalie said working in the shop is an adventure every day. White is a driven person, she said.