Peacock's Tattoo
Jacksonville, FL
904-744-4664

Interview with Dee Peacock

TS.  Dee, I understand you've been tattooing in Jacksonville for some time.  Tell me how you got started.

 Dee:   I’m originally from Jacksonville.   I had the idea to learn how to tattoo in 89/90.  I was inspired by transient kind of roommate that came thru that stayed at my apartment for about a year.  He was a tattooist.  He migrated down from Maine down to Daytona as a tattoo artist.  I was a stop in between and he ended up staying for about a year at my place.  I started learing how to tattoo from him because I was so amazed by it.   It was a pretty good deal cause he was paying half my rent at the time (laughs).. and he started showing me some stuff.  Later he took off and went on his way to Daytona and I still had that itch that I wanted to do it.

TS:  What happen next?

Dee:  At the time I was learning to tattoo I was going to school to be a sheet metal mechanic.  After a couple years working as a Journeyman I got laid off.  I had some money I has saved up and I thought ‘what a perfect opportunity to venture out.  At the time my brother had this little bar in Tampa on a truckstop.  He called me up and said he wanted to open up a tattoo shop in a building that was open there on the truckstop and asked me if I wanted to come down.   So I went on down there we  made our plan and succeeded, opened up Peacocks Tattoos in 1990 in Hillsborough county Florida.  We stayed there 2 years until 92 when I packed it up and moved it home to Jacksonville.  I started with $2000 that was all I had; that and a few drawings and a little bit of flash, but I got a break on the building on Merril Rd.  It didn’t really have a much in it and just kind of went with it and, you know I just been blessed doing it and its grown ever since.   That was actually the third tattoo shop to ever be in Jacksonville.  There were probably 50 or so artists working out of their homes at the time, but just us few doing it leagaly in shops.

TS:  I understand that the tattooing community wasn't quite as open as it is now, what was it like?

Dee:  Well,  Paul Rogers and Eric Inksmith were probably the main pioneers bringing tattooing to Jacksonville in a legal form.  Back then you had to have a doctor actually be in your studio when you tattooed;  that was the law.  Tattooing was very secretive, very ‘hush’.  It really fired them up having this new guy open up a shop out of the blue. They wanted to see my licence and wanted to see if I was legal and that.  It was a bit of a confrontation.  Now, you look at it some 14 years later and there’s probably 60 tattoo shops in town and it just feels good to be able to say that I stepped out by faith and followed a dream just like anybody else would want to do and if by doing so the domino effect…. Its made a lot of people able to tattoo and I’m glad to see the industry grow like it has.

TS:  Do you see Jacksonville as a hotspot for tattooing.

Dee:  Yes.   It is now and it is definitely growing.  With all the artists cooperating together and with the traveling tattooers  stopping here to do guest spost.  Jacksonville is definitely a great place for tattoo.  Look at all the growth in the community  in general, like our stadiums and the road improvments, its inviting more people to come here, more people to tattoo.   I can feel the energy. 

I’m excited to see all the different art backgrounds getting involved; fine arts, graphic arts, illustrators.  A lot of those kinds of artists have migrated into tattooing.  We are definitely in the midst of serious growth.