Stoney St. Clair

Life & Work

The Art of Stoney St. Clair

Leonard St. Clair contracted rheumatic fever as a child in West Virginia and spent a significant part of his early years at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, drawing to pass the time. He eventually joined the circus as a sword swallower and found tattooing while performing in Norfolk, Virginia, watching a tattoo artist work with the focused attention of someone who recognized a skill he could acquire.

He was given equipment and set up behind the elephant barn. The beginning was as unlikely as beginnings get in this trade, but he took it seriously from the first session. He eventually settled in Tampa, Florida, where he operated a parlor for decades and tattooed a generation of local residents who still carry his work.

He later moved to New Orleans and then to Columbus, Ohio, where he died in 1980. His story is one of the more unlikely apprenticeships in the history of the craft: a disabled child from West Virginia who found his art form behind a circus elephant barn.

He found tattooing behind the elephant barn. He spent the rest of his life perfecting it.