A childhood spent sketching in small-town Texas often blurs into memory, but for Cooper Watts, founder of Vagabond Saints Tattoo Lounge, those early years have defined the entirety of his career.
When a friend floated the notion of getting into tattooing, curiosity became a spark, and by 16, he was building a makeshift machine out of the most precious thing he owned: a portable audio player. "It was the early 90s, long before tattoos were mainstream, and certainly before a teenager could research techniques online," Watts says.
