Mike Brown: Utah Change Maker: Nate Drew From Lost Art Tattoo

For the Utah Change Makers issue this month, I chose to interview Nate Drew, the founder of Lost Art Tattoo and the Salt Lake Tattoo Convention. We talked for over two hours over several beers. Over the course of the interview, Drew divulged several stories that were both entertaining and intriguing, but shall not be printed for the sake of my word count (and because there may be some pending legal ramifications). Honestly, the best stories I’ve ever heard in my life are ones I can’t print for similar reasons, but that’s kind of what makes those stories so great. In some ways, it makes those memories between friends more intimate.

We all know about the Salt Lake Tattoo Convention and its massive success. Drew’s been letting me help out the last couple of years by driving a party bus for the artists during the weekend. Several of the out-of-state artists, without me prompting or giving them a handy, have told me that it’s one of their favorite conventions to participate in.

So I wanted to know more about the history of Lost Art and Drew’s background. It turns out it would make an awesome Lifetime TV movie. Aside from having to redact nearly half the interview like it was the Epstein files, here’s what I learned about Drew.

First off, Drew was voted least likely to succeed by his high school. He didn’t really say if that was lack of motivation to succeed or a blatant exposure to the failure of our current academic system. He comes from a family of prominent artists, some of whom Drew said were kind of pretentious, whereas Drew was fueled with rock and teen angst, which I can relate to.

Nate somehow made it into an art school in Virginia and while driving past a tattoo shop one day with his chick at the time saw a help wanted sign outside of a tattoo shop, and thus the journey began.

While tattooing in Virginia his brother was an art professor at the University of Utah. His brother was getting hitched out here so Nate had to come out for the wedding, where his brother told him to bring his tattoo gear because there were art students who wanted to get tattooed.

This was around ‘95 or ‘96, and there were really only three tattoo shops in Salt Lake at the time: Suzy M’s, Southern Thunder and ASI. The tattoo culture back then wasn’t the same as it is now, where everyone and their dog has ink done. While Drew was out here, he landed a guest spot at ASI alongside Rich D who was working there at the time, later becoming the owner and founder of Big Deluxe.

Drew saw an opportunity while he was out here. Turns out there were a lot of young kids who liked hardcore music and drinking Mountain Dew (some may have called them straight edge) who wanted large tattoos that Drew was capable of doing.

Drew opened Lost Art around ‘97, and I believe that’s about when Rich D opened Big Deluxe. Different artists with different styles for sure, but Drew has always had a strong respect for Rich D. And regardless of any tattoo politics, Drew and Rich really opened the doors for artists in this city to open their own shops. Drew refused to take credit for this take when I told him that, but I stand by it.

And that’s a guy who was voted least likely to succeed in high school. Obviously, Drew has his own ethos and opinions on how things should be done and based on his success it’s hard to argue with them. Some of those are “don’t fall for gimmicks” and “it’s okay to fuck around and find out.” But the biggest one is respect.

Read more from SLUG columnist Mike Brown here:
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