Student of the craft

When planning your first (or next) tattoo, it’s important to shop around and check out all your options in town. For those of us on campus, that means heading to South Walnut Street and choosing among those shops most readily available.

But if you broaden your search just a little bit, you’ll find a gem in Little Blues Tattoos, located at 3870 W. Third St.

Little Blues, whose name is slightly Elvis-inspired, has become a Bloomington institution thanks to the hard work of the man in charge, Joe Nugent — better known to his family, friends and loyal customers as “P-Nut.”

A bit of a journeyman, P-Nut has tattooed across Bloomington for many of the shops in town. After apprenticing with Shannon Simpson of Genuine Tattoo Co. for just six weeks, P-Nut was paid to do his very first tattoo on July 11, 2000.

“It said ‘Freedom’ on a guy’s back,” P-Nut said. “Shannon said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ So I did it, and the guy gave me 40 bucks. It was pretty cool.”

A true student of the craft, P-Nut doesn’t consider himself an artist, but more of a craftsman, following a set of strict rules he was taught when first starting.

“I look at doing a tattoo almost like building a house,” he said. “A tattoo has to have a structure and be solid. It has to be something that will withstand time.”

To P-Nut, the medium on which the piece is used is what really sets tattoos apart from traditional works of art. Whereas a painting can stay neutral on canvas for hundreds of years, a tattoo is done on a living organ.

“I look at a tattoo and how it’s gonna look five years, 10 years, 20 years from now,” he said. “To the person who wears the tattoo, it’s art, but from my end of the needle, it’s more of a craft.”

Fellow Little Blues tattooer Adam Burkholder, who has been working with P-Nut for the last three years, said that’s exactly the way P-Nut approaches the job.

“He is super attentive to detail, like every tattoo is the last one he’ll ever do,” Burkholder said. “He doesn’t let a bad tattoo walk out the door.”

That motivation to make every tattoo as if it’s his last could stem from the time when he did almost tattoo his last. On June 17, 2008, P-Nut crashed his motorcycle and ended up in a coma.

P-Nut was out of commission from tattooing for six months, doing small pieces on loved ones just to get back on his feet.

“Kind of a crawl before you walk type of thing,” he said.

But on Feb. 4, 2009, P-Nut opened up Little Blues at its current location with the help of friend Justin “Bones” Williams and has been tattooing ever since.

“I think the last couple years, he’s been doing his best work ever,” Burkholder said.

After so many years of tattooing in Bloomington, P-Nut has gathered a following of fans who come back to him every time they want new ink. While he remains appreciative of the loyal customer base, he takes it all in stride.

“Everyone has their favorite tattooer,” he said. “To say that I’m the best is just someone’s point of view.”

P-Nut’s appreciation for his craft is obvious. As he speculates to Burkholder from across the shop, he imagines that history's very first tattoo was done accidentally by cavemen arguing about meat with a burnt stick.

“Tattooing has been around for a really long time and on every continent,” he said. “It almost comes natural to man to decorate ourselves. It’s really a beautiful thing.”

But even P-Nut, a guy covered in tattoos who makes his living putting them on others, agrees they aren’t for everybody. He’s still just as respectful of the people who don’t want tattoos as those who do, he said. Getting a tattoo can often be seen as a cliché thing to do, which makes some people want them for the wrong reasons, he explained.

The only tattooing practice that P-Nut looks down on and refuses to do is using white ink because the customer doesn’t want the tattoo to be seen.

“That’s weird to me,” he said. “I think people that want to get tattoos should wear them proud.”

Burkholder said he agreed, adding that they try to talk the customers out of it when that happens.

“Yeah, we get that at least once a week,” Burkholder said.

P-Nut is willing to listen to any idea and help a customer turn an image into a functional tattoo design, a skill he said comes with years of practicing the craft.

His large local following can attest to that, as you can find P-Nut originals all across town on people from all walks of life.

After all, P-Nut is a businessman, and even one bad tattoo could wreck the reputation he’s worked so hard to build. His customers can expect the best from him because he expects nothing less from himself.

“I plan on being in the business for years to come,” he said. “Hopefully, I’m tattooing until I’m dead.”


See locations below for all of Bloomington's tattoo shops.

Eternal Ink Tattoo, 5595 Indiana 46; Evil by the Needle Custom Tattoo & Piercing Studio, 1500 S. Walnut St.; Genuine Tattoo Co., 729 S. Walnut St.; Indiana Ink, 601 S. Walnut St.; Little Blues Tattoos, 3870 W. 3rd St.; Skinquake Precision Tattoo & Body Piercing, 103 E. 6th Street; Skyn Art Custom Tattoos, 1276 Old Capital Pike