Meet Nikki Palacios, Shop Manager of Broken Arrow Tattoo Co.
The inviting atmosphere of Stow’s Broken Arrow Tattoo Co. is home to award-winning artists Mitch Bonifay, Audrey Smart, Zak Perry, Mitchell Pivarski, and Travis Lamont. It is also home to the captain of the ship, Nikki Palacios.
@ickynikki__ via Instagram (Photographed by: Maddie Draffan)
Before becoming the manager of Broken Arrow, Nikki Palacios was a tattoo lover first. “I have always liked tattoos, I’ve always remembered just drawing on my skin in school. My mom actually even bought me a tattoo machine, and I was going to try to become an artist at one point, but I realized it wasn’t for me because I’m not the person that can just spit out a design.” She gives kudos to her co-workers for their brilliant ability to spew out amazing tattoo designs every single day.
As I sat and chatted with her I couldn’t help but notice the hyper-realistic portraits on her leg. Horror icons Pennywise, the twins from The Shining, and Grammy-award-winning artist Billie Eilish were all done by her boyfriend, Zak Perry. “He does most of the portrait work.” She shares, looking down at the black-and-grey masterpieces decorated along her thigh. The Twins was her first tattoo with Zak, “That took about 5 hours. This is two years old and it still looks fresh.” Sunscreen is the secret to keeping tattoos always looking clean and bright after all!
I brought up Nikki’s journey on her Neo-Japanese Jorōgumo backpiece with Broken Arrow’s very own, Mitch Bonifay. Jorōgumo is a well-known Japanese arachnid yōkai, the striking visuals of the spider lady inspired Mitch to create a design that Nikki fell in love with. “I like creepy stuff. I like horror” Nikki says. “He (Mitch) was really wanting to do a showpiece. We added in some more yokai demons, like the centipedes. It’s kinda like a little story on my back!”
Nikki’s career in tattoo administration started out when COVID was snatching jobs left and right. During such a dark time, she wasn’t expecting to jump into a whole new career she would fall in love with. “I worked in a plastics factory for like 7 years. I was laid off from that during covid, and I was friends with Zak at the time. He took me under his wing and I was his stay-at-home assistant over the computer. I eventually picked up another artist, but I stayed with Zak and we became a team after that. He was getting really big at that time and he was struggling and I was like ‘I’d love to help like that would be a really cool thing!’”
Her time working at the factory gave her a boost in experience before taking on the work at Broken Arrow. From previously working in a shipping department, Nikki already had experience constantly emailing people back and forth. “It was just a side job, I never expected to do this full-time.” She goes on to say, “I eventually did go back to work, and that was cool for a little bit, but last year the previous shop manager ended up leaving so I stepped into her place. It was a pretty easy transition and taking on the work of 5 artists allowed me to leave my full-time job so I just became full-time here.”
A lot of administrative assistants in the tattoo world get their start by helping friends or a loved one who is clearly drowning in work. Nikki touches on this issue and adds, “The thing with the tattoo industry, especially in the last 3 years, it’s hard to keep up with scheduling and their artistic abilities. There’s all these scheduling apps that could make your life easier, sure, but when it comes down to tattooing there’s so many details you can’t really automate it yourself.”
“I love all these guys, it’s pretty much coming to work with your friends.”
As shop manager, one of Nikki’s main responsibilities includes keeping up with the ever-changing social media algorithms for the shop’s Instagram account. “Things are always changing. I do try to keep up with social media the best I can, it’s a whole ‘nother job.” Nikki shares. We discussed the fact that a lot of tattoo artists struggle to balance between posting enough and tattoo time. “Pretty much anyone that doesn’t have kids are able to post every day. The people who do have kids, it’s unrealistic, they don’t have time to think about that at all.”
When asked about the most challenging part of her job, Nikki admits “Man, the reschedules recently have been insane. I think it has something to do with the summertime and people being on vacation, sweating, and sunlight. But honestly, it keeps the job not boring. Reschedules are just a part of my job, and if that’s the worst part of my job I’m fine with it, it’s really not that bad. It feels silly almost to complain about it.”
I hope to spread the word that behind every well-run shop, there are badasses like Nikki who work to keep it afloat. If you’re ever interested in getting into the industry Nikki encourages reaching out to artists and seeing if they're in need of an assistant. She also touches on the importance of other roles of the tattoo industry besides the artists, “There’s all kinds of stuff in this industry. It’s deep, it becomes this whole network of not just artists but also the business owners of the tattoo industry. You don’t have to be an artist or an apprentice to be in the tattoo industry.”
