If you follow the walk down Stourbridge high street you’ll find a little shop that sticks out from all the rest. Tattoo studios are a fixture in every town. But few are quite like One Shot Charlies. The Black Country's finest. No bee’s, no honey. No work, no money.
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This year Lee Pound and O.S.C. celebrated their 18th birthday. In his words, “It’s about time it got a real job. Old enough to drink, old enough to earn”. We went down to have a chat with Lee about what it takes to make your passion work, from taking that love for art and turning it into a business and a family of artists. It’s safe to say he doesn’t take himself too seriously. “It’s easy to say when you colour in for a living”, was a firm favourite.
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“My dad would sit in front of the tele watching the footie with a canvas and paint brushes. My mum would decorate and customise anything we had. In the 90’s every kid was obsessed with turtles, so she painted them all across our bedroom walls.”
In an area that can sometimes feel overlooked and under-appreciated, and when school isn’t the place you want to be, nor have any interest in being. Looking to the future can seem a daunting task. But Lee stuck with what he knew, with what he loved, and it’s safe to say that I don’t think there’s any looking back.
When you look through the flash sheets that adorn every piece of the walls in O.S.C., you can see that what Lee holds near and dear is what influences the work that he does. He makes no bones about his love for West Brom. The shop is adorned with every Albion tattoo you could ever wish for. Lee’s built up a network of artists who’ve turned into friends, and created a community that spans the globe.
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The thing that epitomises this the most, was the collaboration he’d done with Basque artist @j_albeldatatoo . The two took to the canvas, to both capture what their respective football teams mean to them. And create a Bilbao / Brom alliance in the process.
I guess the purpose of this is to say that whatever your passion is, just go and do it. Because you really do never know where it could end up. And the people you could meet along the way. Long live O.S.C. and everyone forging their own path.