'Ink Master': Meet the Alabama tattoo artists on reality TV show (2024)

If a customer wants to get inked with his or her significant other's name, tattoo artist Ulyss Blair always tries to talk that person out of it.

"It's kind of like a cursed thing," Blair, age 30, says with a laugh. "Two weeks later you end up trying to cover it up." Blair and his wife and fellow tattoo artist Eva Huber own Florence tattoo parlor Allegory Arts, address 110 E. Tuscaloosa St.

The couple is set to appear on season nine premiere of Spike TV's "Ink Master," a reality competition show hosted by smoldering Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. The show airs9 p.m. Tuesdays and premieres June 6. For the first time ever, this season of "Ink Master," subtitled "Shop Wars," features two-person duos from tattoo shops competing instead of individuals. And the prize has also doubled. From $100,000 to $200,000. On the show, Allegory Arts competes against eight other tattoo shops, from such locations as Baltimore, Richmond, Va., and Atlanta, in a series of tattoo-skill-related challenges. "Human canvases" are sometimes involved.

Blair says the new "Ink Master" duos-format presents an inherent challenge. "Tattooing is so individual and brings so much of yourself into your side of the artwork that sharing that with someone else in a partnership, it's like trying to be inside of that person's head. And it doesn't matter if you're married, best friends, knowing someone else's thoughts is almost impossible. [Laughs]" And then there are the "Ink Master" challenges' time constraints. Tattoos aren't something you want to rush.

Blair and Huber seem as likely to make this work as anyone though. When they're not tattooing at Allegory Arts, also home to a third artist, Daniel Evers, the couple enjoys fishing, hiking, painting and going to movies together. They've been together for six years and married for almost two. She's from Buffalo, N.Y., he's from Florence. They met at an after-party during a Seattle tattoo convention, stayed in touch afterwards and as time went on things got more serious. Before opening Allegory Arts in Florence about eight months ago, they were working at separate, awesomely named Brooklyn tattoo parlors: Blair at Magic Cobra and Huber at Eight of Swords. Blair excels at designs with nature-themed realism - wolves, roses, birds, etc. - and cites John James Audubon as a hero. Huber is gifted at old-school vibes, often with a James Jean-influenced spooky, supernatural undercurrent. Photos of their vibrant work are postedon Allegory Arts' Facebookand Instagramaccounts.

In addition to significant others names, Blair and Huber also caution customers against getting band logos tattooed on them. This counsel isn't coming from a snooty place. It's a voice of reason. "It's our job to make sure you don't get something you regret," Blair says. "Our names are attached to the work. And your view on things changes so drastically and most of the time people have that Incubus tattoo that they loved or that Sublime song that they just had to have ... that stuff is definitely a big thing not to do."

Huber has been making art in one form or another since she can remember. Reading a Buffalo newspaper feature story on tattoo artist Cory Cudney piqued her interest. "I remember seeing pictures of his work," Huber says, "and thinking if he can do it on the skin and I can do it on the canvas, what is the missing link?" By her teens, she was hanging out in tattoo parlors and going to punk rock shows. And at age 16, Huber and a friend went underage to "a totally shady shop" to get her first tattoo, picking a bold black geometric flash design off the parlor wall for her lower back. That original tat is now covered up by a full back piece. Now at age 33, Huber's body is pretty much covered by tattoos except the back of her thighs. She's particularly fond of her finger tattoos, a hybrid of Polynesian and other styles, custom designed and drawn on her hands by Brooklyn artist Thomas Hooper.

Blair got interested in tattoos around the time he began listening to heavily inked hardcore and punk musicians like Henry Rollins. His 18-year-old older brother came home with a roman numeral tattoo and soon after Blair got a BMX bike related tattoo on his own derriere, to keep the ink on the downlow as he was only 13 at the time. "Everything we steer people away from now," Blair says with laugh. Like Huber, much of Blair's skin is inked now. Blair and Huber both estimate they've had about 200 sittings worth of tattoos done each. Since much of their own ink runs together, it's difficult for either to estimate how many tattoos they have. An iron skillet and bacon design on Blair's hand emblazoned with the word "Mammaw," the nickname of his beloved grandmother, is particularly meaningful to him. "She was a very important person to me. I'm glad I got it before she passed so it's not a memorial kind of thing. That kind of stuff makes me sad."

"Ink Master" was filmed from January to April in the Newark, N.J. area. Until appearing on a reality TV show, Huber had no idea how much work went into making them. "Their working days are very long and what you see is a very edited and watered down version of the entire experience," she says. "I don't really watch reality TV, but now if I see even like a movie or something I think, 'Oh I bet they had to film that scene like 10 times or something.'" Blair, who has about 12 years of tattooing experience, says "Ink Master" has been pursuing Huber, who's been tattooing for around 14 years, to be on the show for a while. He initially wasn't big on the idea of being on the show when the shop team format was pitched. But he eventually agreed, seeing it as an opportunity to "show the area we live in that we are here to be a very positive contributor to the area. And our art is just that." They'd moved back to Florence where rent was much cheaper but also because "in New York you just exist but here we can actually contribute."

Allegory Arts is housed in a small open-floor space, with artwork and books around. The shop's three tattoo artists operate out of antique secretary desks. They probably have around 300 or 400 needles on hand and 200 or so bottles of ink. Their rate is $150 per hour, with a $100 minimum. An average "single shot" tattoo generally runs $350 to $500, and the most expensive the artists have done is around $2,500, for an arm sleeve that took around three days of work. Arms are one of Huber's favorite body parts to tattoo. "They're just really easy to work with and something the client gets to see all the time," she says." The most painful body part to get inked? Huber says the tops of feet while Blair describes the pain involved with recently getting the back of his knee tattooed as "absolutely horrible." During his apprenticeship, all those years ago, Blair actually tattooed himself, which while helpful for practice is extremely difficult because of the concentration and pain involved.

Blair and Huber have tattooed each other some over the years - but not each other's names, remember. She admires the beauty he brings to his work; he admires the darkness in hers. Huber counts a butterfly design ("a classic 'mom tattoo'") she did for her mom as one of her most memorable. "My mom kind of kicked me out of the house when I started learning how to tattoo," she says, "then she came around 10 years later and wanted to get one. So it was a come full circle moment." Blair has special memories of tattooing a simple black dot the tip of Huber's ring finger, using portable tattoo tools, while they were on an Austrian mountain. "It was a great day," he recalls.

Tattoos have become increasingly mainstream over the last 20 years, moving from rock 'n' roll fringes to less edgy demographics such as suburban housewives, fraternity bros and, well, reality TV. This brings both good and bad, Blair says. Tattoos aren't seen in a negative light as often as they used to be. Blair misses the grimy hipster-free tattoo parlors of yore but adds, "The more people involved with an industry, the more creative and further along it goes and tattooing has gone so far just since I've been in it. The difference between the quality of work is just phenomenal now. But you also have the people where they just want to (be a tattoo artist) because it's a cool thing now. They don't pour themselves into it - that is a downside to something becoming mainstream. But those people come and go. It's just like people who want to be in bands but aren't that good. They don't stick around."