Thomas Pendelton talks about the life on “Inked” he left behind and the new family atmosphere he embraces.
Hundreds of miles away from the illuminating Las Vegas atmosphere surrounding Hart and Huntington Tattoo Company, Thomas Pendelton’s eyes light up. He grabs his wife’s hand, flashes a huge smile and explains an idea he and his business partner had a while back.
“Anthony and I had an idea to sell holes,” the artist laughs. “You know, like holes in the ground.”
“It makes no sense, so don’t even ask,” his wife Monica responds with a smile.
“Golf courses need holes,” Pendelton explains. “What about swimming pools? You need a hole if you’re building a swimming pool. I also thought it would be pretty cool to be a bounty hunter…”
Ideas like these set 35-year-old artist and entrepreneur Thomas Pendelton apart from his peers. Now that he is no longer tattooing, he is now using his creativity to start up his own clothing line, “Ministry of Ink.” He is also the proud father of 3-month-old twin girls as well as his 9-year-old son.
“My life is now 100 percent family-oriented and business,” Pendelton says. “Where I am today is exactly where I want to be.”
Today Pendelton is moving forward in his life with no desire to return to Hart and Huntington Tattoo Company in Las Vegas as well as the crew of A&E’s reality TV show “Inked.” After numerous arguments with co-owner Carey Hart as well as others in the shop, he decided it was time to sever all ties and move forward.
Pendelton describes his former lifestyle on “Inked” as an all-around wild time. Throughout the club promotion and the show’s chaos, running a shop in a party-like atmosphere proved to be extremely difficult.
Working as the front man for the business, the stress he was put under by others in the shop became overwhelming. Eventually the problems escalated to a point where he and Monica broke up.
“I think I didn’t handle that stress well,” Pendelton says. “We were working together, living together, we had a reality show, and a new relationship. It was all so much at once that it was rough for us.”
Unknowingly, the breakup served as a conduit for a severe change in his life.
“When I lost Monica, it reality checked me,” Pendelton says. “After we broke up I really didn’t care about anything. I didn’t care about Hart and Huntington, and I was just hanging out with friends, partying like a rock star.”
When the couple finally started talking again over time, Pendelton decided it was time to leave his life in Vegas behind and move forward with Monica. A structured family life was in clear view ahead, and the bright lights were becoming a blur.
“The people who worked there before are completely different now,” Pendelton says of his former co-workers. “They’re all rock-starred out now. If a family life is what we want, we can’t be in that environment.”
Now that Pendelton is moving on from tattooing, his art is coming through in other mediums. He feels he is getting through to a broader audience through his clothing line instead of tattooing a few people each day.
“If I was going to stay in the tattoo industry I would open my own shop,” he says. “You can only go so far, make so many tattoos for a person in a day. It was really just a natural progression for me to leave there. I know what it’s like to own a shop now, and babysitting an artists is not an easy thing to do.”
He credits “Inked” for helping him leave the tattoo industry immediately. The clothing line has been picked up by Hot Topic, and they have gained over 1500 people on their email list.
The inspiration behind his clothing line’s name, “Ministry of Ink” comes from Pendelton’s ordainment as a
minister. He describes the style of clothing to be one that puts creativity as a higher power, and feels that with all the negativity in the world, those who are creative offset the balance.
“You see guys that have all that negative shit on them; they’re probably really negative people. You look at mine, and you’ll see they’re all positive,” Pendelton says.
The word “Disciple” is displayed clearly on his fingers, as well as the words “True Love.” The space on his right hand displays a Tibetan prayer, and a portrait of Jesus takes up the space on the left side of his neck.
“Ministry of Ink” shirts have many obscure designs including angels holding guns. Pendelton says it’s because there is so much death in mainstream religion that they decided to put it out in the open.
“People might get offended, but it’s what’s really going on in the world,” Pendelton says. “It may seem dark but it’s really light-hearted. It sends positive messages in almost a sarcastic tone. If you look through it all you’ll see the positivity.”
“Everything I do revolves around some type of ink, whether it’s tattoos or t-shirts,” Pendelton says. “I have spent so many years making other people successful, so this is my work and my idea. In a sense it’s my ministry and what I believe is good art. I’m not drawing for anyone else anymore.”
Many of Pendelton’s own tattoos carry specific meaning. This is especially true of the portrait of Jesus displayed on his neck. “When I was a kid I used to carry around a picture of Jesus in my sock,” Pendelton says. “I don’t know why I did, but I did.”
As a child, Pendelton grew up poor. He recalls moving around from place to place, living off of welfare, and continuously being evicted.
“We lived in Reno for awhile, in this shithole town called Fernley,” Pendelton says. “We had these dirty junkyard dogs and a go-cart with no motor. So in the morning the dogs would pull us to school in the go-cart and my brother would tie them to the bike rack. You can’t get more white trash than that.”
Pendelton started doing artwork for a living at 17, and started tattooing when he was 21. Although he loved
working as an artist in this medium for as long as he did, he felt it was the right time in his life to move on from reality TV as well as the life he had in Vegas.
“It (“Inked”) made us all look like a bunch of knuckleheads,” he says. “Among artists there’s a lot of jealousy. I think a lot of people thought why are they filming these knuckleheads, when there are a lot of better artists out there.”
On the other hand, Pendelton feels the show did bring in hundreds of people
that wouldn’t normally enter a tattoo shop.
“I don’t think tattoo artists realize that there are still millions of people out there who think tattooing is just bikers and the scum of the earth. Hart and Huntington broke that mold in the way it looked and was run. People can hate on the show if they want, but it still broke that mold.”
As far as reactions from the public go, Pendelton doesn’t pay much attention to the negative feedback.
“I was in the hospital when the twins were born and this man walks up to me and says, ‘I fucking hate you. I hate your show and I hate you’ and I was like thanks for watching,” Pendelton laughs. “It’s just a weird reaction, ya know? That can really bum you out if you start to think about it.”
And he’s not thinking about it, since his life on the show is in the past, and his life as an artist, in whichever medium people view for him, is what he looks toward for the future.
“I walked away from everything, wanted nothing, and I wanted my name pulled
off of it,” Pendelton says. “When I walk away, I walk away and leave it all behind.”
Photos by Susan Goldman
