Tattoo You: Fort Greene’s Electric Lotus Is Your Friendly Neighborhood Tattoo Shop
When Jae Connor was a child, he was fascinated by a skull tattoo on his father’s forearm. “I must have asked him about that tattoo 100,000 times,” he says about the eye-patch-wearing skull surrounded by flames and two crossed swords. His dad got the tattoo in San Francisco while in the service.
“It looks like hell now but I won’t re-do it for him because it’s got this aged, classic look. It’s perfect,” he says. “I was obsessed with tattoos before I really even knew.” As an adult, Connor got a tattoo in homage to his dad’s and to his love of tattooing.
Many tattoos later, after 23 years working in the business, Connor introduces Electric Lotus Tattoo to Brooklyn at 692 Fulton Street (near South Portland Avenue) in Fort Greene. His bright, clean, and welcoming shop seems right at home in the bustling community of small, local businesses.
Born and raised in Clifton, New Jersey, Connor spent much of his youth hanging out in lower Manhattan. “I got my first tattoo at 15. I was into the skateboard/punk rock scene,” he explains, “There were a lot of people in my circle with tattoos, so I found out where I could go.” (Tattooing was illegal in New York until 1997.) He ended up going to Darren Rosa’s apartment in the Bronx where he got a tribal dragon in black ink on his calf.
When asked how many tattoos he currently has, Connor doesn’t know. The last time he tried counting, “We gave up at 50. I’d probably say 80% of my body is covered.” Connor is all business and ink-free from his neck up.
At age 17, Connor began hanging around a friend’s tattoo shop. “Two days after I graduated high school they asked me if I wanted to learn,” so he worked at the shop for about six months before moving on. “I was lucky enough to come across my friend’s older brother who had been tattooing for a few years and he took me under his wing and taught me how to tattoo.”
He trained with Jersey Jeff at a shop in Morristown, New Jersey and at 18, got his own tattooing equipment. Initially just “a cool job,” after a couple of years, “It clicked. This is my life. This is my career.”
“When I started learning how to tattoo my stuff was more like graffiti and drippy – almost psychedelic. Then you realize there’s this language in tattooing that’s been around for a long time and you start to follow the formulas,” says Connor. “Of course you can break off from that, but it’s good to know what a good, strong tattoo should look like and how it should be constructed – what’s going to hold up and stand the test of time.”
After moving around to a few other shops in New Jersey and “really cutting [his] teeth,” Connor worked in Fort Lauderdale, then Denver, before returning to Florida—this time Miami. “There was a great tattoo culture and community in Florida.”
In Miami, Connor worked for Luiz Segatto, a world-renowned artist he admired. “He was from Brazil originally and worked around the world. To this day he’s still one of my idols, peers, and a great friend and mentor.” After almost 2 years working with Segatto in Miami, Connor set out on his own and opened his first Electric Lotus Tattoo shop in Boonton, New Jersey with his wife Bridget in 2000.
Explaining the shop’s name, “electric” refers to modern tattooing. “At the turn of the century when tattoo shops were popping up around ports, they would call them Modern Electric or Sanitary Electric.” The “electric” also refers to the artwork in psychedelic posters or Hindu paintings, “like paintings of Ganesh or Lakshmi—you see that vibrancy, that’s also electric.”
The “lotus” refers to the flowers being “born out of the mud,” becoming “something from nothing. That’s where I think tattooing comes from. It comes from an idea out of nothing and it becomes this beautiful thing.”
His shop in Boonton has been thriving for 16 years. Connor says he’s never been at any other shop long enough “to tattoo people and then when their kids become of age [16 in New Jersey with parental consent] they bring them to me.” But after a while his routine became “very predictable,” and he needed a new source of inspiration.
Connor asked his wife, “If you could live anywhere, where would you want to live?” They both answered Brooklyn. The couple had lived in Clinton Hill briefly when they first opened their New Jersey shop and before having three kids.
“We always wanted to be here and our goal was that when our kids got older we’d move into the city.” After discussing it with their kids, the family started “checking out different neighborhoods…parks…restaurants. It just clicked that this is definitely what we’re meant to do. This is like its own planet. Everything is happening here.” The family sold their house in New Jersey and moved to Park Slope in August 2015.
The Brooklyn Electric Lotus Tattoo opened its doors in August 2016. Like his New Jersey location, this smaller shop is inviting and immaculate, with walls covered in artwork Connor collects from around the world. Connor commutes to the Boonton shop once a week and one Saturday each month.
One thing that excites Connor about the Brooklyn location, “I’ve had a lot of people from all over the world come through the shop, which is really interesting and stimulating. I always like to hear about what’s going on in different places. I don’t think culturally it gets any more diverse than Brooklyn…. I love that. That’s why we moved here.”
Working alongside him in Brooklyn is Simon Velez. Originally from Columbia, Velez has been tattooing for about 20 years and had his own shop in Columbia before moving to New York about eight years ago. Connor says of his colleague, “As soon as we met, we clicked…We have a lot of common bonds besides tattooing. I feel like I’ve known him for 20 years.”
He says that the two of them share “the same values as far as tattooing goes but also as far as lifestyle goes. We’re both into healthy and clean living.” Velez is an avid cyclist. Connor runs, meditates, and takes Tai Chi lessons in Prospect Park. While Connor says he can be intense at times, he definitely has a laid-back, zen-like energy.
Both men want to maintain tattooing’s integrity—not exploit it as the reality television shows have. They respect tattooing’s rich history, use the best equipment and techniques, and are truly invested in the art. They believe in the quality of the work and “…it being a really positive experience.”
Connor thinks that some tattoo shops can exude a “cooler-than-you vibe”—“that’s just not us. It should be a very positive interaction because you are impacting the person.” During our interview Connor was naturally warm and friendly to all the walk-ins who inquired about getting tattooed or flipped through the portfolios.
Connor prefers crisp looking tattoos with strong lines and very clean shading. He and Velez have complementary styles but each artist possesses his own personal flair. “We’re both well-rounded. People can come in with all different types of styles, or a trend that’s happening, and we can pretty much cover it.”
When asked about reality shows such as Miami Ink and countless others, he says he does not watch them and would not participate in one, though he wouldn’t be opposed to a documentary. Connor started tattooing because “it was different and taboo…back in the day you wouldn’t tell your mom you were getting a tattoo.” Now that these reality shows are popular, “mothers and daughters come in together…I thought that was cool.”
Connor’s own mother, who didn’t initially agree with his career choice, visited him when he was working in Miami. “She’d come by the shop and saw what I did for the first time. Not just the quality of the work but the interaction with the people blew her mind.” She saw how his work made his customers happy.
Perhaps the greatest sign of his mom’s approval is her getting her first tattoo by Connor, a little butterfly on her ankle, at age 57. He gave her a second tattoo three years ago.
Connor has tattooed people as young as 16 up to people in their 80s. The sweet story of his tattooing a woman for her 80th birthday made it into a local New Jersey newspaper. She got a small bluebird tattooed on her shoulder—something she’d always wanted to do but her late husband never would have allowed when he was still alive.
While he definitely receives some unusual or obscene requests for tattoos, Connor will give customers his opinion and advice but insists he is “not here to tell people what to do. I tell them what I think will work best but ultimately they make their choices.”
He adds he won’t do anything with a hateful message or anything that makes him feel uncomfortable or think it will affect someone’s life in a negative way. “Overall I like to think it’s going to have a positive impact.”
Connor hopes customers will appreciate his Brooklyn shop’s “location, its visual aspect, the way that it’s laid out, the cleanliness, the quality of the work, and the quality of our vibe and personalities. Like I said, integrity – I think people pick up on it right away…. When people get tattooed by us they are really happy on all levels.” He adds, “We’re down to earth. We’re approachable. Our overall good vibes is what sets us apart.”