A Black tattooing pioneer stopped in Philly, taking selfies and inking her signature on skin

When the gnarly, outlaw bikers would roll into the New Orleans tattoo shop looking for some quick ink, they’d look around for anyone but Jacci Gresham.

“Where’s the owner?” they’d ask.

“You’re looking at her,” Gresham would shoot back.

Most men would just shrug and sit in Gresham’s chair, taking off their shirt or their underwear, she said, if they were drunk enough.

“And some people would take a look at me, a woman, a Black woman at that, and just walk right back out the door,” she said.

Gresham, now 77, is a pioneer in the tattooing industry, a woman who opened her own shop in the 1970s, decades before female tattooers became more common. Semiretired and living on 40 acres in Picayune, Miss., Gresham drove nearly 1,200 miles last week to set up shop at the Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Festival.

One woman drove up from West Virginia just to get tattooed by her on Saturday afternoon. Some fans wanted selfies and a few wanted her signature tattooed, a permanent reminder that they’d met her. They cost $100.

Many just stopped by to give “Miss Jacci” her flowers.

“You’re my inspiration,” tattoo artist Mia Thomas, of Bensalem, told Gresham. “You’re the reason I became a tattoo artist.”

Born and raised in Flint, Mich., Gresham said she always enjoyed art and drawing and had aspirations to be a fashion designer as a child. At Flint Central High School, she took drafting classes, which sparked an interest in architecture and engineering.

“I was the only girl in that class,” she said.

After studying at Lawrence Technological University in Michigan, Gresham worked for General Motors, designing auto dealerships. She met a man at GM who knew tattooing, and together, they moved to New Orleans in 1976 and opened Aart Accent Tattoos & Piercing on North Rampart Street, which was the oldest tattoo shop in Louisiana until it closed in 2022 after the building was sold.

Many tattoo websites have said Aart (spelled with an extra “a” to be first in the phone book) was the first tattoo shop in the United States to be owned by a Black woman, and Gresham said she only knows of one other woman, in Seattle, who’s been tattooing as long as she has.

“I know I’ve been tattooing longer than any Black person in this building,” she said Saturday at the tattoo convention.

Villain Arts, the company that runs the Philly tattoo convention and others, said there were 1,500 artists from 12 countries there. The company doesn’t break those numbers down by race or gender, but there were hundreds of female and Black tattoo artists up and down the aisles, all of them busy working on someone’s skin.

“She set the path,” said Trap Wright, of Black Ink Orlando. “There would probably not be that many women tattooers today, if not for her. For her to be a woman, and to be Black, back then, that’s for real.”

Atlanta tattoo artist Paper Airplane Jane said women customers often prefer female artists, and Gresham, she said, paved the way.

“Particularly for Black and Brown women,” she said.

Thomas, who owns a private studio called Inktachi, was tattooing at the convention but set aside time to get one of Gresham’s signature voodoo dolls tattooed on her leg, along with her signature.

“I knew she was gonna be here, so I had to be here. I actually wanted to go to New Orleans to meet her, but I didn’t get the chance,” she said. “I’m telling you, everyone knows Miss Jacci.”

Since her shop closed, Gresham has spent more time at home, where she’s building her own tattoo studio. She doesn’t get into New Orleans too much, but she’s been doing some guest appearances at shops and convention booths.

“I’ve been pretty lucky with my health,” she said, “but it can have a toll on your body. I just had cataract surgery.”

Gresham has tattoos herself, mostly on her legs, but she’s never gotten any on her face or hands, she said, in case she had to work in engineering. She said the first tattoo she did was a spear and there’s only one genre of art she doesn’t dabble in.

“I don’t do any of that devil stuff. When I did, in the past, bad things happened,” she said.

Tattoo acceptance took leaps forward in the 1990s, Gresham said, but before that, the usual customers were “biker types” and the occasional woman they brought with them.

“It seemed like it was bikers for 20 years,” she said. “Before the ‘90s, there weren’t tattoo shops everywhere and there still weren’t a lot of women doing it. And it was even harder for Black people to get into the industry, before about 2000.”

Annette LaRue, 60, was a biker herself, working on her own motorcycles and tattooing in Daytona Beach, before moving to New Orleans to work with Gresham. LaRue, who tattoos in Virginia today, was in the same booth with Gresham in Philly.

Working for Gresham, LaRue said , was like “petting a tiger.”

“She’s beautiful , she’s exciting and charismatic and you want to be around her, but she can bite you at any minute,” LaRue said. “She’s a strong woman and she’s got strong words.”

Elisheba Mrozik, who owns Queen Bee Ink, in Nashville, has been tattooed by Gresham. She was also the first woman to tattoo her “Auntie Jacci.” The two caught up at a tattoo convention in Baltimore last year, and Mrozik is happy Gresham’s still touring and tattooing and seeing, firsthand, how beloved she is in the industry.

“She deserves her respect and her flowers now,” Mrozik said.

Gresham was a little wary of driving to Philly, with all the snow the city’s seen, but she said Beck’s Cajun Cafe at Reading Terminal Market had some of the best Cajun food she’s ever had. She thinks she’ll do a few more shows this year, but she’s building a tattoo studio in a tree house in Picayune and wants to spend more time there.

“I am old and I appreciate the peace of the country life,” she said. “So maybe people can come see me.”