Not Just Skin Deep

Writing by Isabella Aranda Garcia

Photography by Justin Negard

“Is it alright if I put you on speaker while I tattoo?” asks Gianna Nicholson, artist and owner of Bee Inked Tattoo Parlor in Yorktown Heights.

Inside her studio, time doesn’t just pass—it’s shaped, shaded and inked into permanence. Whether she’s sketching a new concept, tattooing a client or sculpting for herself, Nicholson’s creativity is always in motion. It’s no surprise she came from a fine arts background, originally aspiring to be an art teacher. At SUNY Purchase, she studied sculptors like Bernini and Michelangelo; now, she brings that same reverence for the body to her tattooing.

“I was sad at first, thinking, ‘Did all my sculpture training go to waste?’” Nicholson explains. “But it really didn’t. It’s come in handy.” With a sculptor’s eye, she studied anatomical diagrams and visualized the way skin stretches and muscles shift, approaching every tattoo as if it were coming alive on a moving canvas. “The skin moves. It breathes. You have to think three-dimensionally. Nothing is flat.” This training allows her to freehand directly onto her clients’ skin with precision, adjusting for how the muscles pull and stretch—a technique she calls “sculptural drawing.” However, those who have known her since childhood wouldn’t have predicted this path.

Catechism, compasses, and color theory

“I actually grew up in a super old-school Catholic family,” she says. “I taught CCD once a week. I was supposed to be an art teacher—if anything, they wanted me to be a nurse.” Tattoos, let alone tattooing, weren’t even on the radar. Nicholson didn’t get her first tattoo until after college. On a trip to Ireland after graduating, she and her friends decided to commemorate the experience with matching ink. “So I drew something really quick,” she remembers. “Everyone wanted simple compasses to symbolize staying connected. I ended up designing a little squiggly dragonfly with compass points around it.”

That tattoo, inked halfway up her back thanks to a pair of high-waisted Charlotte Russe jeans (“multiple buttons and all,” she laughs), was her first introduction to a world she’d soon join. “It’s funny because if you asked me back then, I never would’ve imagined I’d be covered in tattoos—let alone making them for other people.”

After graduating from SUNY Purchase in 2015 with a BFA in sculpture and a minor in art history, she planned to pursue a master’s. “But life happens,” she says matter-of-factly. “My grandfather got sick, so I stayed close to help my family.” That pivot took her to work as a wax technician at the legendary Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry, known for crafting the Oscars’ statuettes. “We worked on Jeff Koons, Louise Bourgeois… even Meryl Streep’s husband’s pieces.” But something felt off. “I realized I wasn’t creating art—I was just manufacturing it.”

After leaving the foundry, she bounced between waitressing and bartending jobs at Applebee’s until an unexpected opportunity found her. “I’d been painting on my best friend’s leg—this giant peacock—and someone saw it,” Nicholson recalls. “She said her husband was a tattoo artist, and he was looking for an apprentice. I wasn’t even thinking about tattooing, but it just clicked.” She spent two years apprenticing at a local studio.

During her apprenticeship, Nicholson immersed herself in everything from sterilization and machine tuning to color theory and skin anatomy. “There were times when I would draw, like, 100 Celtic knots, and my hands would hurt, but I had to trace them over and over again. And if I messed up, I had to start over again and redo the whole page,” she says. It was overwhelming, but she thinks of it as a way to build her hand strength and discipline as well as to help her stay focused for hours on end. “They break you down to build you up again… They really pushed me to be a better artist, so I’m really grateful for that.”

Nicholson at Bee Inked.

A gentle sting

When the world paused during the pandemic, Nicholson took it as a sign. It was time to create something of her own. A year later, in 2021, Bee Inked was born. “I love puns. So I named it Bee Inked—‘Come Bee Inked by us, it only stings a little.’”

At Bee Inked, softness is a strength. “I wanted to make a place where clients feel truly comfortable,” Nicholson explains. “Especially in a field that’s been so male-dominated.” As the first female artist at her previous shop, Nicholson knew firsthand how valuable a welcoming space could be. “I wanted people—especially women—to feel safe getting tattoos in more private areas without eyes on them. But we welcome everyone. I’d say it’s about 50/50 between male and female clients.”

The road to opening wasn’t smooth. “One landlord literally took my deposit, then told me I could only tattoo women. When I told him I tattoo men too, he backed out of the lease. It took forever to get that deposit back.” Despite those early challenges, Nicholson persisted. “I was like, believe me—I’m not in some biker gang. I dress up as the Little Mermaid to volunteer at children’s hospitals in my free time,” she laughs.

A hive of activity

Now, her shop thrives. The Bee Inked team is a carefully selected mix of artists who share Nicholson’s values. “I didn’t plan on having a mostly female team,” she says. “But I pick people based on work ethic first. Talent can be nurtured, but your heart—that’s what matters.” Today, she works alongside four other artists, each with a specialty—from Japanese to American traditional, Gothic, realism, and stylized tattoos.

Nicholson herself specializes in realism, working in both full color and black-and-gray, often on large-scale portrait pieces that require precision, stamina and emotion. Her days are long (12 hours on average) and deeply intentional. And her training didn’t stop with her apprenticeship. “I like to get tattooed by artists I look up to—it’s one of the best ways to learn their techniques,” she says. “I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone doing color realism sleeves… Tattooing with color is almost scientific—learning someone’s skin type, how it holds pigment, and how to saturate the skin without overworking it.”

When asked what her shop’s mission is, she doesn’t hesitate: “To give people happiness, healing and high-quality work. Not just take their money.”

Every tattoo begins with a collaborative design session that’s approximately two hours long. Nicholson walks each client through placement, details and feelings. Some clients are eager to get started; others need time to prepare. “I never push a tattoo,” she says. “It’s on your body for life. I want to make sure it’s something you want.” On a typical day, she’ll complete one large-scale tattoo. Her longest session? Fifteen hours. “I dedicate a full day to one person,” Nicholson explains. “You’re my whole world that day, and I give you my all. That’s why the wait is worth it.”

Nicholson with the man of the hour, Barnibus Buzzbee.

Healing ink

And for Nicholson, the art is only part of it—it’s also about healing. “I had a tumor on my spinal cord as a toddler,” she explains. “The surgery saved my life. I was supposed to be paralyzed, but I wasn’t. It inspired me to give back, but I didn’t have it in me to be a nurse; I would just cry all day. So I give back in other ways.” That might mean inking over scars, creating memorial pieces or just being a comforting presence. She recalls the time she created a portrait of her client’s late husband, explaining that tattoos can sometimes be part of the grieving and healing process. “I didn’t post that one—some things are sacred.”

Of course, not every request is serious. One of the wildest requests she receives still makes her laugh. “Someone asked me to tattoo a face on their face. I told him, ‘I’m not a plastic surgeon!’”

But beyond the silly moments, the work carries real emotional weight. Nicholson speaks softly about clients who’ve come in grieving with a portrait of a lost loved one or a tribute to survival. Being part of that healing process is something she never takes for granted.

Her favorite tattoo, however, is easy. “It’s always the one I’ve done today.”

This article was published in the July/August 2025 edition of Connect to Northern Westchester.