This Month’s Featured Article

“Like any kid who drew, I was lucky enough to have friends that were better than me at it,” quips tattoo artist Nalla Smith, owner of Sticks & Stones Tattoo in Hillsdale, NY. “So, that kind of showed me some tricks, but also gave me goals to get better at it.”

With Nalla having drawn seriously since the age of eight, in tandem with healthy competition and “a social approach to artwork” with his friends, his talents went noticed by his mother, and Nalla was soon enrolled in The Art and Design High School in New York City. Inspired by his love of comics and animation throughout his teen years, Nalla started considering what his career might look like. “I was already identifying myself and my future as an artist,” he observes.

This commitment to art, and the possibilities that come with it, soon evolved when Nalla stumbled upon local zines, which, in every bodega, store, and magazine shop in New York City, seemed to reflect truly hardcore and alternative lifestyles. “We started seeing tattoos that weren’t your parents’ tattoos … although my parents didn’t have tattoos,” Nalla jokes. One of the publications that stood out in this array was Ed Hardy’s Tattootime, with each issue of the magazine focusing on a specific theme, from Music and Sea Tattoos to New Tribalism. 

“What I came away with was that tattoos could be anything. Prior to that, I hadn’t thought they could be anything but traditional tattoos or military tattoos. It didn’t really even occur to me, honestly,” Nalla explains. With this new perspective of tattooing as a multifaceted and dynamic space where anything is possible, Nalla saw a world of new opportunities. “All of a sudden, here I was, starving for an identity, and being an artist, […discovering] the infinite variables that I now saw tattooing could be.”

The intricacies of tattooing & piercing as a job

Equally instrumental was Re/Search #12: Modern Primitives, a 1989 book that served as a blueprint, bible, and foundational text to the movement with which Nalla was so enthralled. The San Francisco-based book outlined the types, styles, names, and practitioners of all sorts of piercing and tattooing methods. “When I first read through this tome of extremism and beauty, it sparked a fire in me that has never gone out,” Nalla muses. Thus, his passion flourished, with tattooing and piercing opening the door to developing his own identity, and helping people discover theirs, without limits. “I saw a vehicle for my art career to blossom in this medium.”

However, from 1961 to 1997, tattooing was illegal in New York City. People were still tattooing but in a more undercover manner – mainly out of their own houses after a secret knock on the door to get in. When Nalla went to get his first tattoo, he inquired about how he could get into the business. “The veil of secrecy was thick and sturdy back then. There was no Amazon. There was no way for someone just to suss out how to do it, unless you were allowed into the club proper,” Nalla remembers. “And they would usually throw out some ridiculous price, like, ‘$15,000 and I’ll teach you.’”

Naturally, as Nalla was only eighteen years old at the time, this was far from feasible. But one thing he could figure out on his own was piercing, and Modern Primitives served as the perfect guidebook for this practice. After managing to pierce himself successfully numerous times, Nalla explains that he was able to encourage friends, and others, to trust him to do their piercings, too by developing a confidence and commitment to professionalism and safety that was particularly pivotal during the height of the AIDS crisis.

With this new skill in tow, the place to be (as Modern Primitives made clear) was San Francisco. Once there, Nalla hoped that a tattoo shop would take him on as an apprentice so he could learn the ropes of the tattooing craft. However, when he went looking for job openings, everyone else seemed to have had the same idea. “I wasn’t as unique as I thought,” he jokes. “There was a whole army of us infiltrating San Francisco, most likely because of those books, and also that culture was obviously there.”

Carving out an identity & career

It wasn’t until a year and a half of odd jobs later that Nalla ended up working at San Francisco’s first piercing shop, Body Manipulations, thanks to a connection with the owners, Esther and Vaughn, the latter of whom was featured extensively in Modern Primitives! This shop happened to be right downstairs from Erno’s Tattoo, where Nalla received many tattoos from one of his idols, Greg Kulz.

Nalla talks about this fortuitous kickstart in the industry and how it helped to develop his professional approach and a priceless bedside manner. “I was ecstatic! Not only was it an incredible opportunity to rekindle the fire of my own personal development, [but] it was also an opportunity to learn about dealing with people’s bodies, intimately and respectfully, dealing with fear and insecurity, and sometimes mistakes, and how to remedy those mistakes and come through it in the end with a positive outcome.”

The best part? When an apprenticeship slot opened up at Erno’s, Nalla had made so many friendships and connections that the spot was his. And with piercing experience under his belt, he had already built his own clientele base that could transfer over to tattooing, too. “But it was the hardest thing I ever did, and still is,” Nalla adds. 

At this stage in his career, Nalla focused on skeletal, tribal tattoo designs, crediting Greg Kulz’s mentorship, inspiration, and friendship as directly influencing and nurturing Nalla’s approach to the work. After tattooing at Erno’s for about three years and attending conventions to network with other artists in the industry, Nalla was recruited by Freddy Corbin to work at Ed Hardy’s street shop in North Beach called Tattoo City. Nalla likens the situation to being welcomed into the coolest band in town, working alongside a “stellar roster” that included Ed Hardy, Freddy Corbin, Dan Higgs, Eddie Deutche, and Igor Mortis. 

“They are one of the most legendary crews of a tattoo shop ever, regarded by most as the elite team,” he emphasizes. By 1994, he was working alongside them. “That was really my fifteen minutes of fame. And I learned a lot,” he reflects. “All my heroes had become friends, and it was a magical time.”

Seeking change & new momentum

Balancing the critical guidance of Ed Hardy and his own goal of mastering all types of tattooing, Nalla wanted to branch out: “At this point, I was trying to shed my tribal skin and get better at doing anything and everything. It was a humbling process, day in and day out of exalted highs and abyssal lows.”

Starting in 1994, when Nalla returned to New York City once or twice a year to visit, he worked as a guest artist at East Side Ink. Initially an underground shop started in 1989, the shop was home to New York tattoo legends including Sean Vasquez, Andrea Elston, and Lori Levin. Nalla eventually opted to take on the challenge of owning East Side Ink himself in 1997, first from across the country, and when that didn’t work, in 1999, Nalla ended his tenure at Tattoo City and went to run East Side Ink in person. By 2002, Nalla had learned a lot about what it took to own a business, while also concluding that he’s not “wired, necessarily, to be good at the business side of tattooing,” as he admits.

During a stint in Los Angeles working at Mark Mahoney’s Shamrock Social Club and Chris Garver and Clay Decker’s True Tattoo – where Kat Von D was working at the time – Nalla sought to return to simply being a tattoo artist. Upon moving back to New York City in 2007, this couldn’t have been a more imperative aim: “My ability had waned, owning a shop and not working that much. I didn’t realize quite how damaging it was not to stay in practice. I had to regain my momentum,” Nalla asserts.

Exploring new approaches to tattooing

In 2010, Nalla was finally ready to open his next shop. Located next to a bar called Duck Duck, his tattoo shop was aptly named Goose. Interestingly, he explains how at this time, all tattoo artists and clients seemed to be interested in were traditional tattoos. While there’s nothing wrong with a singular style approach, from Nalla’s perspective, the whole appeal of tattooing is being able to explore a variety of styles.

Nalla noticed the impact of what he calls “the bold fallacy.” Because you had to be good at bold lines to be good at traditional tattoos – and many incredible artists were passionate and well-versed at this style – the idea of a “fine line” tattoo was frowned upon, and clients were dissuaded from trying to get them. “And since I had gotten into tattooing for the variety and I was of the few artists who was at least willing to do a really small, fine line tattoo, I became flooded with clients that other tattooers didn’t want to tattoo,” Nalla describes.

This gave Nalla time to really hone his craft and improve. Though when it was time to renew the lease on Goose, he decided to bring his skills back to upstate New York, which had been a haven for him during his upbringing. In 1981, his father had purchased property in Boston Corners, NY, and on weekends, the rural scenery was “a sanctuary from the stresses of public school,” Nalla emphasizes. “That continued throughout my life. Whenever I was here, it was my reward at the end of a week to come up and explore this region.”

Rediscovering the passion of shop ownership

It’s no surprise, then, that eventually, the city lost its original luster, and the Hudson Valley was calling in earnest. When Nalla moved to Hillsdale permanently and was offered a spot at Hudson River Tattoo in Hudson, NY, “that sealed the deal,” he says. Thanks to owners Pam and Eric, Nalla spent a decade happily working at the shop. While he was quite content in the role, he soon couldn’t shake his long-standing desire to open a shop of his own once more and rediscover the depth of passion and motivation that come with that.

When Nalla and his wife, celebrity and editorial makeup artist Christine Cherbonnier, found out that the Hillsdale building that once housed American Tattoo was available for rent, the gears began to turn. It was Christine’s enthusiasm upon seeing the space, according to Nalla, that gave him the final push to pursue the space and open the shop in March. 

Indeed, in many ways, the couple recognizes that Sticks & Stones was made possible through their love. “When we started dating, it was incredible because I realized how similar our jobs were, with skin as a medium and our relationship with our clients,” Christine explains. “It just sort of made sense that we would create something together.”

Christine is curating her own boutique at Sticks & Stones and seeks to support and promote Nalla’s work while helping to manage the shop and organizing her retail space, which will feature vintage and fine jewelry, other unique oddities, skin repair essentials, and Sticks & Stones merchandise. The couple’s goal is to foster a welcoming, personalized environment where everyone can feel safe, comfortable, and engaged by art, love, and community. “We’ve tried to immerse ourselves in the community, too,” says Christine. “Tattooing is for everyone.”

At Sticks & Stones, not only are all welcome, but there’s no specific style Nalla wants to push: “I try to do everything well. I can get behind any style of tattooing.” And Christine adds, “I really want to keep the bar high as far as inspiration goes.”

As the retail space develops, Nalla has plans to designate one day a week for piercing, returning to his roots. “It’s a continuing challenge and honor to be trusted with the sacred job of exploring identity,” Nalla muses. “To be a part of people’s journeys, and to be trusted to be a part of people’s journeys, is so rewarding on so many levels.”

Sticks & Stones Tattoo is located at 2640 State Route 23 in Hillsdale, NY. To learn more about the space and Nalla’s work, please go to sticksandstoneshillsdale.com or visit @sticksandstoneshillsdale on Instagram. You can get in contact with Nalla and Christine by sending them an email at contact@sticksandstoneshillsdale.com or giving them a call at (518) 217-2926.