Archive Note
Ryan Ashley grew up in Dallas, a small borough in northeastern Pennsylvania, graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and worked for about five years as a fashion designer in New York City before moving into tattooing; she had been tattooing only around five years when she won the eighth season of Ink Master in 2016, becoming the first woman to take the title. Her ornamental black-and-grey illustrative work draws directly on her fashion background, foregrounding beadwork, lace, embroidery-like detail, jewels, and scrollwork, and she works as a custom artist rather than a flash or street-shop tattooer. She co-founded The Strange and Unusual Oddities Parlor in Kingston, Pennsylvania in 2013 with Josh Balz, keyboardist of the band Motionless in White, where she keeps her private studio, and she later co-owned Elysium Studios, set in a restored church in Grand Junction, Colorado. She returned to Ink Master as a recurring judge across the spinoffs and the later seasons.
Lineage
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