The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
DRAWING FROM THE ECLIPSE
INKspired STUDIOS offering designs April 1 to 14
Rachel “RayBeth” Grasso and her team at INKspired Studios, 720 Broadway in downtown Lorain, are offering permanent reminders of the April 8 total solar eclipse.
From April 1 to 14, INKspired Studios will have a variety of quick flash tattoo designs on sale for from $80 to $150.
Designs will include the moon, other celestial bodies and even aliens, Grasso said.
“I’m super excited about it, and I think downtown Broadway is just a beautiful open area (for the eclipse),” said Grasso, who spent most of 2023 on tour with Team Fliction, a group of traveling professional tattoo artists. “One of the things I brag about when I’m on tour about my shop back home, is I can walk out my front door and see the lake and the lighthouse underneath the Broadway sign.”
The team at INKspired already was excited for the event regardless of the tattoo sale, Grasso said.
As a group of self-proclaimed science enthusiasts, the group was thrilled that they would be able to see the eclipse so close to home, she said.
“First and foremost, it’s something that we’re excited about anyway, because we love the moon and moon events, and science,” Grasso said. “We’re always trying to find different ways to market ourselves to the community, to do stuff to open ourselves up to people who normally wouldn’t get tattoos, or can’t afford it.”
She said the flash sale idea was the brain child of herself and fellow INKspired artist Sabrina Liebas.
The group collects flash tattoo ideas in a group chat, and hosts themed sales every month, Grasso said.
“She’s the one that pretty much gets on us all the time, and lets us know what’s going on with the flash,” Grasso said of Liebas. “She likes to be behind the curtain, but she’s the voice of the (flash sales).
“We all have one big group chat, and we’ll send the flash that we do.”
Grasso spent most of 2023 on tour with Team Fliction, a group of traveling professional tattoo artists.
As for the tour, after a year of being on the convention circuit, she broke off to work independently in an effort to be with her family more often.
“I was gone a lot,” Grasso said. “(The tour) was stressful.
“I definitely had a lot on my plate, and I had to take some time to rest. This year, I went independent … which is a lot better for me in a lot of ways. Now, I do half the shows.”
Grasso said the year of being on tour gave her not only more customers but also the ability to make high-quality tattoos even faster.
With such a monumental event coming up, she said, the INKspired team wants to provide as many permanent memories of the eclipse as they can.
“We wanted to definitely do something, not necessarily to bring people here, because we know they’re already coming, but to give people permanent memorabilia,” Grasso said. “You’re going to remember it forever.
“But if you have a tattoo, it’ll always spark a conversation.”