Tattoos and piercings are now just a street apart.
Later this month, Black Angel Body Art will take up residence at 109 S. Linn St. — directly across the street from sister shop Release Body Modification, 110 S. Linn St. A lack of competition resulted in an uptick of business, and Release needed more space for piercing.
Instead of putting Release’s current tattoo artist, Nikki Powills, out on the street, owner Steve Easley decided to open a tattoo-only studio somewhere in town.
“She’s a wonderful artist and a great human being altogether,” said Easley, who has known her since she was 16. Powills has worked for Easley for about a year.
As a well-established name already, Easley said the opening of Black Angel should be relatively smoother than that of Release.
“With the piercing studio, your jewelry game has to be on point,” Easley said. “With tattooing, basically the artist shows up with their machines, their needles, and their ink, and I provide all the soft supplies. As soon as we pass inspection, we can get things rolling.”
The name Black Angel comes from Oakland Cemetery’s Black Angel.
“It has to do with the heritage of Iowa City,” Easley said. “I wanted to name the studio after something that had to do with Iowa City itself.”
Easley has worked his way through various tattoo shops as a piercer, and knows what works and what doesn’t, he said.
“I’ve lived half of my life within a tattoo shop,” he said. “I know what people are looking for, and I know the inner-workings of tattoo studios very well.”
Easley started at the local Nemesis Tattoo Studios, eventually being gifted ownership of Nemesis along with three other people for a time.
“I kind of started Release for about a year inside Nemesis before I branched out and opened another location,” he said. “Basically, I made a handshake agreement that I would give up my share of the partnership for free and open a piercing-only studio.”
Similar to Easley’s expertise, Powills, who has been tattooing officially since 2010, has a passion for the art with experience to back it up.
“As far as style goes, I lean towards realism but love to do a whole bunch and push myself to achieve different styles,” she said. “But once we have Black Angel open, we’re going to have more artists, and that’s more people to bounce ideas off of and just have general inspiration and flow going.”
Working in a college town, Powills said she sees a wide range of clients, from those who want clean and simplistic to largely visual works of art.
“In Iowa City, I find we have a huge variety of tattoo artists,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of different artists to meet the needs of everyone, which is also pretty cool and different from other cities you might see.”
Powills’ long-term clients are looking forward to the change of scenery as well.
“I’m really excited, but more so for Nikki than myself because I know her client base is just booming right now,” Zachary Estabrook, who has been going to Powills since 2010. “I think this is going to be very beneficial for her and her clients.”
Black Angel’s space is set up with three booths, Easley said, and will ideally accommodate two full-time artists with the third in place for guest artists.
“I’m really stoked in that aspect to have somebody else in that same career side of the body modification community to chat and hang out with, and to grow with as Black Angel grows too,” Powills said.
Black Angel won’t only be a tattoo studio, however, as Easley has plans of making it into a mini art gallery to showcase guest artists’ work — both local and national — before they arrive.
“I think having it as a slight gallery option as well will pull more people in who wouldn’t necessarily think about going to a tattoo studio,” Powills said. “It will give everyone who comes to the shop a little more insight into art, and I’ll get to meet more artists and talent as I see their art cycle through.”
