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The baseball helmets were team Havoc, a national champion team. We had the privilege of putting there symbols, along with their team number on the back of each helmet.
This was one of my recent tattoo photo shoots, in urban style. The model was Coloured Peoples’ very own piercer, Thea. Check out more of what I do in the albums on my Adelpha Eve Facebook
After apprenticing for The Coloured People Tattoo Company for about 4 months, I feel that not only have I found my career in full motion, but I have also found a home. My bond and connection with my co-workers has become thicker than blood and our passion for creating has never been more on fire. Together we strive for similar goals, while carrying each others burdens and fears, facing life and its struggles with only our mediums in hand and our drive pushing us.
And within the past 4 months, our goals and directions have shifted, along with my business. I begin a new journey with only the support of the greatest artists I know, and the believers and supporters in each of our lives. Adelpha Eve has now joined Coloured People Tattoo Company to offer more than just one avenue displaying our abilities. Coloured People now offers custom tattoos, Tattoo photography, Freelance photography of any kind (weddings, pin ups, families, portraits, bands etc), custom furniture, Custom commercial designs for anything from album covers to t-shirt designs, and custom airbrush work on your cars, skateboards, surfboards, helmets, etc.
Coloured People is simply a group of raw, real, talented artists, not limited to a certain medium, and completely unstoppable. Check out my shop family, and if you’re interested in some of the things we have to offer, let us know.
colouredpeopletattoo.com
863.816.5884
ladies and gentleman, may i introduce to you the finished piece. new drawers, new doors, and custom designed.
the inside of the desk with dragon made with india ink, graffiti pens, and acrylic.
koi down one side made with india ink and graffiti pens
sorry its blurry, drawing in 40 degree weather made for a not so steady shot. fu dog with graffiti pen
close up
I took it to the shop with every expectation of getting laughed at (my own vulnerability showing through) and while i was there, i got every compliment in the book. And while i was shocked enough that they liked it, they began to ask me if i ever thought of apprenticing. I explained that i had but i didn’t have the money to start. I ended up walking out of the shop that night with an appointment this Sunday to get my sleeve started and to discuss my starting date for my free apprenticeship.
I can honestly say that I can only thank my sister at this point. It took a mental breakdown on my studio floor, believing that rebuilding this piece alone was just too hard and for her to show up and verbally kick my butt. She said something that night that kept me going… she told me that anything of value takes time, and learning is part of the art. And i need to always work as if that piece will be the piece that changes everything. And if it doesn’t, maybe the next piece will… This piece just might have changed everything.
I will let you all know how Sunday goes, and who knows… come sunday i might have my own business along with being a tattoo apprentice. It’s weird how you can actually catch up to the dreams you chase.
Danae Henderson
as Adelpha Eve
Recently Adelpha Eve has picked up a “trade” with colored people tattoo company off east gary road in Lakeland, Florida. We have taken the mission to redo some of their shop furniture and in return get tattoos and their old furniture.
This post is about a piece that they wanted us to fix up. It is an antique writing desk with Asian symbols on it with beautiful cherry wood and the absolute worst workmanship we have ever seen. 
But, when we first picked up this piece we thought it would be simple – sand it, fix the broken parts, paint it and be done… we were very wrong. Now, almost a month later, the desk is almost finished and worth twice as much as when we started. However getting it there was the hard part. We found several things that were needless to say… over our heads.
The drawers weren’t sliding easy at all. Thinking this is because there were no drawer slides, we set out to fix it… only to find out that there were no drawer slides and the entire drawer was warped, disfigured, and falling apart. It took us a few weeks to realize this, and when we did we destroyed them. We tore it apart till the only thing left was the front plate. We are in the end of this process now and so proud of it. 
Next we noticed the feet. Asian designed feet simply stapled, glued, and held with rusty stripped screws… we had to hammer them off, then remake them, caulk them, and paint them. 
The wood throughout the entire desk was cracked in places and warped on the front closure. so we had to sand the entire thing then caulk the cracked pieces. Then we had to woodclamp the warped closure to get it laying even. 
Then put our base coat on the visible pieces…
after that we had to paint the symbols –
And one sides design –
And then we got behind all kinds of power tools. Circular saws, table saws, drills, power sanders, you name it. 
who thought it’d be a good idea for us to do this?…. not sure.
but we managed. 
If anyone knows us, they immediately know that while we may be able to talk circles around you in the art world, we cant even do simple arithmetic, much less make measurements and follow them with ease… It was definitely a new realm of art for us. And when we asked for a challenge, we weren’t quite expecting that. 
So after long hours and much blood, sweat and tears… mostly tears, our piece is almost done. stay tuned for finished pictures. Who knows, we may survive.
Adelpha Eve has been not only working on our business skills but also ourselves.
In a desperate search to see Gods plan for us, we found ourselves knocking on God’s door asking for answers. He gave us this verse,
2 Corinthians 5:13 “If we are crazy, it is for God. If we are sane, it is for you.”
Unsure of what this meant, we continued to search… And this is what we found at a point when we weren’t actually looking for the answer. Buried in books at Books-A-million, writing pages of notes of business tips and ideas something caught my eye. Plato believed that art is a “gift from the divine power”, and to be an artist one must be literally “out of their mind” to create things unseen or to remove themselves from reality to show a different one. We realized why that verse laid so heavy on our hearts at that point. And it was because we are indeed out of our minds. And while society condemns this thought, we embrace it.
We know now, that our crazy ideas and passion for creating, is a small reflection of our God. He stitched our heart with colored thread, and planted seeds of insane ideas in our minds, and made us to create. And now we know, that as long as we do so with the hope of only honoring Him… we are doing just as we were meant. And that is to be out of our minds, crazy, insane. And all for Him…
Danae
Adelpha Eve
As our first courageous step towards success, Adelpha Eve has officially become a working business. We have gotten our business tax ID number after hours of waiting in the Credit building and long discussions with random qualified experts trying to explain our goals…. which was a challenge to begin with. Art minds conversing with math minds always makes me laugh. But why the courageous step? Because we wanted to promote ourselves at Farmers curb market in downtown lakeland. Never attending the event before, we thought it would be a great place to advertise and market our furniture and ideas. And to become a vendor, we needed to be a business. Looking at this step as a victory, we went in with a dream and walked out early 20’s small business entrepreneurs.
However, after staying up all hours of the night and downing a few pots of coffee, we were both spent and feeling defeated. Our fear of failing haunted us, and the idea of not being prepared enough caused us to second guess ourselves. It also caused us to reevaluate the condition of our products. Our furniture, while re-birthed with fine art and strong finishings… didn’t feel right. We didn’t feel it was good enough (a common thought in an artists mind). So at 3:30 in the morning, we decided to go to bed and accept defeat. and just take the time at the market to investigate our other competitors. Also it would give us time to make our pieces strong and perfected to the point of us being satisfied to sell. After all, people are buying pieces of what we see, and we don’t want it to be anything less than perfect.
So Saturday morning came, and to our surprise, we had one competitor. Not only that, our competitor was not what we expected. She wasn’t anything like us. She was underdeveloped, a different style, and completely…. not us…
We were able to walk out that morning with smiles on our faces and a new fear lit up in our minds. No one was like us… Is that bad? Or did we really find something that simply hasn’t been done yet? And not only that, where do we market now? Because obviously we didn’t belong there at the market, we pushed fine art while they pushed veggies and small trinkets or downtown pictures on canvas. So in our defeat we found an unexpected victory and a to-do list the size of a dictionary. But, with a new state of mind, and idea of direction we keep pushing forward, refusing to let fear keep us from being who we are.
So our next step? well… we are working on that. But this time, we step without fear…
I decided to make a goal of sketching at least one piece a day. Here are a few from the past few weeks… feel free to critique! Also, if anyone has any ideas, or requests for a sketchbook entry just let me know, I’ll give it a shot.
All of us have dreams… This is one that has risen from the graves of two artists minds.
Me and My best friend Jeska, have survived off our artwork together since we were 13. We have always shared with each other our dreams of making a difference, dreams of showing open minds these visions of the world as we see it through our own eyes. And now here we are, in our twenties and we have come to a profound discovery. And that is that we don’t fit into society. While this is discouraging at times, we have found that this truth is our greatest asset. We weren’t meant for simple lives….
And this is that dream. The small step towards the life we were made for… the small view into the big, crazy, impossible world we live in. So if you have an open mind hungry for things unseen or truth never heard, read on.
we will post daily our current projects, artwork, sketchbook pages, hopes, victories and defeats. And we hope you walk with us, to succeed in our crazy dreams in a very normal world.
-Danae
as Adelpha Eve
Adelpha Eve's Blog 