By Morgan Noseworthy
Local Edmontonian Brent Smith and two of his compatriots from Lucky Strike tattoo have struck out on their own to create Fox Runner tattoo. Located just off Whyte Ave at 10185 81 Avenue, Fox Runner has been open for just a few weeks now.
Myke Peters and Landon Warienga have partnered with Smith to jam pack this shop full of talent and 26 years combined experience. Also included in their lineup of artists is Mary Madsen, previously from Atomic Zombie, and Tyler Bailey, who just came back from tattooing abroad in Glasgow, Scotland.
Smith is a long-time resident in the South Central Edmonton community.
“I love it, man. The area is great. West Ritchie is good. I like that I’m further entrenching myself in the community because this is kind of where we want to spread our roots out. We’ve got a home here and we want to stay here for a while so having a business close to home was a good move.”
When asked about NAIT’s upcoming tattoo program, the artists were concerned about the quality of the artists,
“Tattooing is the type of art style that you need to want to do it bad enough that you want to take on an apprenticeship, and then you really have to work to get it,” said Peters.
“If it’s in a classroom setting, it’s going to do nothing but pump out bad tattoo artists and saturate the market.”
“There’s been lots of attempts at tattoo school before and they’ve all failed. It’s not something you can teach in a classroom setting. It has to be very one-on-one.”
“The cream always rises,” commented Smith.
Warienga, a NAIT graduate in digital media and IT, was concerned about it being “a correspondence” course.
Also in the shop was Jennifer Konanz, a local artist who designed the logo and mural in the shop.
“These guys wanted a kind of seventies-styled thing so I start with typography. I designed the lettering and got that down,” says Konanz.
“I’ve been working on this a few days. It’s not a huge one, but the letters are pretty fancy and I do it all by brush.”
To check out Fox Runner’s Valentine’s Day flash sale check them out Instagram or Facebook @foxrunnertattoo.
