Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Cumbee.
Hi Joe, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started tattooing around 2001 at **Inksmith & Rogers Tattoo in Jacksonville, Florida**, where I was fortunate enough to come up through a very traditional, old\-school approach to learning the craft.
I learned from guys like **Mike Wilson and Eric Inksmith**, at a time when tattooing was still very much something that was passed down from one tattooer to another. You learned by being in the shop, watching, listening, drawing, painting, making mistakes, and putting in the time. There weren’t endless tutorials or shortcuts. You learned the craft hands-on, and you earned your place in it.
That experience really shaped the way I look at tattooing to this day—not just the technical side of it, but the history, traditions, and respect for the people who came before you.
In 2006, I moved to Missouri and started working for **Brad Fink at Iron Age Tattoo in St. Louis**. I spent about six years there, continuing to develop as a tattooer and learning another side of the business and the craft.
From Iron Age, I moved over to **Trader Bob’s Tattoo**, another shop with a long history in St. Louis. I spent roughly eight years there, and that became another major chapter in my career.
Eventually, after years of working for some great tattooers and in shops that helped shape who I was, I felt like it was time to build something of my own.
My wife and I opened **Permanent Vacation Tattoo in St. Charles, Missouri**. The idea was to take everything I’d learned over the years—the traditions I came up with, the importance of a strong shop culture, and the belief that tattooing should still feel personal—and create a shop that reflected those values.
We’ve now been open for nine years.
When I look back, it’s pretty incredible to think that what started more than 25 years ago with me learning the old-school way in Jacksonville eventually led to my wife and me owning our own shop here in St. Charles
Tattooing has changed tremendously since I started, but the things I value most about it really haven’t: **respect the craft, respect the people who taught you, keep learning, and make tattoos you’re proud to put your name behind.**
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The Obstacles Along the Way
It definitely wasn’t a straight line getting here.
When I started tattooing around 2001, tattooing was a very different world. Getting into a legitimate tattoo shop wasn’t easy, and there wasn’t a YouTube video or online course showing you how to do everything. If someone was willing to teach you, you showed up, kept your mouth shut, paid attention and worked.
Coming up through that old-school environment could be tough, but it taught me something I’ve carried throughout my entire career: nothing in tattooing is owed to you. You have to earn it.
Then in 2006, I moved from Florida to Missouri. I had already started establishing myself as a tattooer, and suddenly I was in a completely different city where very few people knew who I was. In a lot of ways, I had to start over.
I was fortunate to get the opportunity to work for Brad Fink at Iron Age and later spend eight years at Trader Bob’s. Those years helped establish me in St. Louis, but there were still plenty of ups and downs. Tattooing is a career where your income depends on people walking through the door and trusting you enough to permanently change their body. There are busy years and slow years, great clients and difficult ones, great decisions and plenty of mistakes.
The industry itself was changing around me, too.
I started in an era where your reputation was built almost entirely inside the tattoo shop and through word of mouth. Eventually websites came along, then Facebook, Instagram and social media completely changed how tattooers marketed themselves. Suddenly being a good tattooer wasn’t always enough—you also had to become a photographer, content creator and marketer.
Probably one of the biggest risks came when my wife and I decided to open Permanent Vacation Tattoo.
After spending roughly 15 years working in established shops in Missouri, walking away from that security and putting our own name on the door was intimidating. When it’s your shop, there’s nobody else to blame. The rent, payroll, artists, customers, reputation and future of the business ultimately fall on you.
And I learned pretty quickly that being a tattooer and owning a tattoo shop are two very different jobs.
There have been difficult employees, difficult customers, financial pressures, long hours and plenty of moments where I’ve questioned decisions I’ve made.
But those obstacles are also what made Permanent Vacation what it is today.
More than 25 years after I first walked into a tattoo shop in Jacksonville, I’m still tattooing, still learning and still trying to get better.
And maybe that’s the biggest lesson I’ve taken from all of it:
You never really arrive in tattooing.
The moment you think you’ve learned everything is probably the moment you start falling behind. You keep drawing. You keep tattooing. You adapt when you need to, hold onto the traditions that matter, and keep showing up.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My Work & What Sets Me Apart
When it comes to my work, my foundation has always been traditional tattooing. That’s the world I came up in, and those principles still influence everything I do today—strong designs, good composition, tattoos that fit the body properly, and work that’s meant to still look good years down the road.
Over the years, I’ve become particularly known for American traditional and Japanese-influenced tattooing, especially larger-scale work where I can really think about the entire body part rather than treating every tattoo as an individual image.
I love doing sleeves, back pieces and larger compositions where everything has to work together. That’s where all those years of drawing and tattooing really come into play—understanding flow, placement, negative space, readability and how a tattoo is actually going to live on someone’s body.
At the same time, after more than 25 years of tattooing, versatility has become a big part of what I do. I’ve worked through several generations and trends within tattooing, and I’ve never wanted to become someone who can only do one thing.
What I’m Most Proud Of
I’m proud of the tattoos I’ve made, but honestly, I’m probably even more proud of the career and life that tattooing has allowed me to build.
I’ve been able to make a living doing something creative for more than two decades. I’ve worked alongside some incredible tattooers, met thousands of people I never would have met otherwise, and eventually my wife and I were able to build Permanent Vacation Tattoo together.
There’s also something pretty special about having clients who have been coming to me for years—sometimes decades.
You tattoo somebody when they’re young, and years later they’re coming back with a completely different life. Sometimes you’re tattooing their spouse, their kids once they’re old enough, or their friends and family.
At that point you realize you’re not just making tattoos. In a small way, you’ve become part of people’s stories.
That’s something I’m extremely proud of.
What Sets Me Apart
I don’t think what sets me apart is some secret technique or that I’m going to claim I can tattoo better than everybody else.
It’s experience, perspective and the way I approach the craft.
I learned tattooing through the traditional apprenticeship and shop system, and I’ve spent more than 25 years actually doing it.
I’ve watched tattooing go from a fairly underground profession to becoming a massive mainstream industry. I’ve had to evolve with it without forgetting where I came from.
I understand the history and traditions of tattooing, but I’m also not afraid of change.
Most importantly, I still care.
After thousands of tattoos and all these years, I still want the next tattoo to be good. I still think about the design. I still worry about the placement. I still want the client to walk out excited about what we made together.
You can teach somebody technique.
Experience takes time.
And I think those 25-plus years of experience—combined with still genuinely loving tattooing—is probably what sets me apart the most
How do you think about luck?
What Role Has Luck Played in My Life and Business?
I don’t know that I’ve ever really believed in luck—good or bad—at least not in the traditional sense.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to believe much more in God’s divine will and His timing.
That’s not to say I believe God simply laid out a path for me to become successful or that every decision I’ve made was somehow the right one. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. I’ve had doors close that I desperately wanted to stay open, and I’ve had things happen in my life and career that, at the time, felt like setbacks.
But looking back over 25-plus years, I can see how many of those moments led somewhere else.
There were certain people I met at exactly the right time. Opportunities that came along that I probably wasn’t expecting. Moves I made that were scary at the time but ended up changing the direction of my life.
Starting at Inksmith & Rogers and having the opportunity to learn from people like Mike Wilson and Eric Inksmith. Moving halfway across the country to Missouri. Meeting and working for Brad Fink. Spending years at Iron Age and Trader Bob’s. Meeting my wife and eventually taking the risk together to open Permanent Vacation.
You could look at some of those things and call them luck.
I tend to look at them as providence.
At the same time, I believe you still have a responsibility to do something with the opportunities you’re given. Faith doesn’t replace hard work. I’ve had to show up, work, sacrifice, take risks, fail, learn and keep going.
And there have absolutely been times when I couldn’t understand why something was happening. It’s usually much easier to see God’s hand in your life looking backward than it is while you’re going through something difficult.
So when somebody asks me how much luck has played a role in my success, I’d probably say very little.
I’ve certainly been fortunate and blessed, but I don’t necessarily call that luck.
I believe God has put people, opportunities and even obstacles in my path that have helped shape the person, tattooer, husband and business owner I’ve become.
I haven’t always understood the plan, and I certainly haven’t always followed it perfectly.
But looking back, I can see that there was a purpose in a lot of things that I couldn’t see at the time.
And today, I’m incredibly grateful for where that path has taken me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Permanentvacationtattoos.com
- Instagram: @permanentvacationtattoos, @bigjoecumbeetattoo
