When Tempest Anderson co-founded Heirloom Arts, LLC, in 2018, they couldn’t have anticipated the challenges they would face in the business’ first year.

But two years after the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the small business community, the non-binary owned tattoo shop has found its niche, and is thriving. Founded on a desire to build a safe space for Kalamazoo’s LGBTQ+ community, Heirloom is home to five full-time artists, two apprentices, and a growing book of clients. They moved out of their original building in the Vine Neighborhood to a bigger space on Stearns Avenue in January 2022.

A $5,000 grant from United Way BCKR’s Micro-Enterprise Grant program, a partnership with the City of Kalamazoo, helped cover some of the moving costs.

“We want to keep growing,” shop manager Mae Risk said. “We are an education-based shop, which is why we have so many apprentices. We love teaching our kids.”

Those “kids,” as Risk affectionately refers to them, are all up and coming artists, and a key part of the team’s passion for combatting the toxic masculinity they see within the body art industry, they said.

Anderson, who took on full ownership in 2019, started what has become a robust apprenticeship program, and serves as mentor to those they bring on.

“I love the community that we have built here,” Risk said. “We are very excited about being a queer-owned, woman-owned shop. We have just a huge, for a lack of better terms, little army of queer folks that we have grown here that love to get work done by us. It just builds a nice little environment here that is safe for all sorts of folks.”

Pandemic early days

Working in the middle of a pandemic was anything but easy. Heirloom was shut down on and off for four months at the beginning, plus another two during December and January of 2020-2021. Beyond the challenges of keeping a business open during a pandemic, tattoos can be pricey at times for customers.

“Tattoos are a luxury item, technically, even though they are really, really important for a lot of folks,” said Risk, who began managing the shop in mid-2020. “They can be expensive sometimes.”

“Since then though, we have been absolutely booked, which is a good problem to have,” they said. “So managing that has been a lot, but other than that, it’s been great. It’s nice to be booked.”

Grant Support

Risk came across the Micro-Enterprise Grant program while searching online for funding to aid in upgrading their space. With guidance from United Way staff, the application process ran smoothly, and the funding was key in covering moving and operations costs in preparation for the relocation.

“When I saw the grant, I said, ‘Oh, well this would be able to help with moving costs. This would be able to help with operation costs. It would be a really good opportunity for us.’”