Danielle Distefano: Only You Tattoo Owner Leaves Her Mark on Atlanta – And Me

The desire for tattoos has been described as “a primitive and inexplicable fascination with the process of puncturing the skin, letting blood and consenting to change the body for life.” While growing up on Long Island, Danielle Distefano probably didn’t spend much time pondering those whys and wherefores of humans’ bizarre compulsion toward tattooing. She just knew that she wanted one. And bad.

“I got a Sick of It All dragon, which was my favorite band at the time,” said Distefano, co-owner of Only You tattoo shop in Grant Park across from Oakland Cemetery. “It was totally illegal style. I got a fake ID just to be able to get tattooed. I didn’t even care about drinking or anything like that; I just wanted to get tattooed. I’ve always been an artist and was hanging around tattoo shops while all my other friends were getting fake IDs so they could get tattoos as well.”

Distefano tells me this while hunched over my side, tattoo gun droning like a hand held jackhammer. After all, if you’re going to interview a tattoo artist, what better time to get inked? Granted, it wasn’t exactly a Hunter S. Thompson-caliber reporting feat, but the tattoo-cum-interview was first for both Distefano and myself. And while we weren’t sure whether I could pull it off, what with the pain factor and all, Distefano certainly proved the consummate multi-tasker, chatting away casually while carving out the seemingly impossible intricacies of the tattoo I had requested.

For months, I had been pining away for a battleship tattoo. An absurdly detailed battleship modeled on the USS Iowa with artillery a-blazin’ and a tiny, infinitesimal, flag a-blowin’, that is. And where did I want this World War II relic? Running up my ribcage, smack dab on that bony harp. In other words, one of the most painful tattoo spots on the body.

After a shot of whiskey next door at Tin Lizzy’s to strike down the swarming butterflies in my gut, I laid down on table, t-shirt rolled up and tucked into my bra, and braced myself under the gun. With M. Ward’s “Hold Time” playing calmly in the background Danielle asked, “You ready?”

“Let’s do it,” I said, wishing I had taken a second whiskey shot.

When Danielle transferred the stencil onto my flesh, I asked Only You co-owner Matt Greenhalgh what he thought about it.

“I think she’s crazy,” he replied.

“Why’s that?” I responded, butterflies beginning to stir again.

“Do you see the detail on that?” Greenhalgh said, half-laughing and shaking his head at the apparent absurdity of my tattoo request.

But as an artist constantly refining her craft, Distefano isn’t one to turn down a challenging design. “I like old school imagery but with a modern take on it. Like a bit more refined feel,” she said, explaining her personal tattooing style. “And I do impossible little tattoos as well, like battleships on ribs with a million little details. I’m willing to do a lot of stuff that other people aren’t, but I only do it if I know it’ll be a good tattoo.”

That straightforward philosophy and a relentless work ethic have been the backbone of Distefano’s 10-year career as a tattoo artist. And as a woman honing her chops in a male-dominated industry, that intense focus on quality, precision and style helped her break through the bullshit stereotypes of women as second-tier tattoo artists and demonstrate that she could ink as well as, if not better than, the boys. “I feel like I’ve gotten respect in the industry because I focused on being a tattooer instead of concentrating on the fact that I was a female tattooer,” Distefano said. “I got respect from a lot of old school male tattooers just because I wasn’t trying to prove anything. They saw that I was serious, that I was willing to do the work and wasn’t looking for handouts.”

Although women tattooers are becoming more commonplace thanks in part to reality television, the industry’s boys’ club roots run deep. For that reason, when the 19-year-old Distefano landed an apprenticeship in Chinatown — incidentally around the same time reality queen Kat von D was getting started on the West coast — it was a stroke of luck she gratefully jumped at.

“There’s a ton of tattoo shops in New York, and there are also a ton of people who are willing to instruct you, and you definitely get the opportunity to tattoo a lot when you live there,” Distefano said. “And that just helps you grow, having that experience and being able to constantly work. You don’t always get that in a small town. Whereas, you have tons of tourists coming through the city who want to get a tattoo and who you also won’t see again, so if I messed it up, it wasn’t this guy who lived next door or something.”

Of course, Distefano did mess up in the early days, just like any other tattoo artist learning the ropes. In fact, the first tattoo she attempted – a small shield with an anchor emblazoned on it – remains unfinished.
“My machine stopped working, and I was so nervous that I just gave up. I was just like ‘That’s it, that’s all you get. I can’t finish it’,” she recalled. “I never figured out why. It could’ve been as simple as adjusting a rubber band, which probably would’ve worked, but I had absolutely no guidance and I was just horrified doing my first tattoo.”

Ten years later and rookie nerves long gone, Distefano now doubles as tattoo artist extraordinaire and business owner, having made a name for herself while ping-ponging from New York to San Francisco before heading down South with her husband and photographer Matt Miller. She and fellow 13 Roses veteran Matt Greenhalgh opened Only You two years ago, a daunting prospect at the time, considering Atlanta’s already crowded tattoo scene.

“Since being here, there have been four shops that have tried to open within a few miles of Only You,” Distefano said. “But we weren’t trying to open up and have other shops go out of business. We just wanted something different than other shops wanted and we wanted to be able to coexist.” With an eye-popping portfolio and a jam-packed appointment calendar that barely leaves her any breathing room, Distefano has gone far beyond merely coexisting. From giving tattoos in her in-laws’ kitchen in Gwinnett, to working as one of the city’s most in-demand tattoo artists in only five years, Distefano has thrived. “The reality is that if you’re good at what you do, you’ll be fine,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that there’s a shop down the street because all you have to worry about it what you’re producing and getting a good product out and worrying about your own stuff.”

When Distefano turned off the tattoo gun, I walked over to the mirror and saw what she was talking about — literally. There was the impossibly detailed battleship incarnate, the proof positive of Distefano’s expertise sailing up my left rib cage with its tiny flag flapping in the invisible wind.

Photo Credit: Tim Song