Megan Massacre
Standing out amongst the talent featured in two of TLC’s reality shows, America’s Worst Tattoos and NY Ink is Megan Massacre: tattoo artist, model, fashion contributor, and TV personality. Her artistic savvy, engaging personality, and stunning good looks illuminate her multi-faceted, cross platform appeal. Megan most recently made guest starring TV appearances on E!’s Secret Societies of Hollywood and MTV’s Girl Code during its third season.
Megan has been tattooing for 11 years, and modeling for 8 years. She has done two TV shows on the TLC network in the US which also aired globally. The first was “NY Ink,” a reality show based in the NYC tattoo studio The Wooster St. Social Club which aired 3 seasons, at 25 episodes. The second was a tattoo cover-up show where she fixes and covers bad tattoos with better ones titled “America’s Worst Tattoos” which aired 2 seasons, 16 episodes.
Megan now describes her work as bold, bright and colorful. Combining different styles of tattooing such as traditional, new school and realism into one design to create unique designs that look as though they jump right off of your skin.
Megan’s first thoughts of becoming a tattoo artist began when she was fourteen years old. However, after visiting a local tattoo studio inquiring about a tattoo apprenticeship, she was turned down for being both considered too young and not having enough money to pay for it. At the time, she thought her dreams were crushed.
Fast-forward a few short years, and Megan had a brush with fate. The recent high school graduate was attending community college and paying for it by working an unfulfilling job at a failing furniture store. One of her co-workers had applied for a job as a body piercer at a local tattoo studio and asked Megan for a lift to the interview. While there, her friend told the shop owner how well Megan could draw, and he asked her to draw a few tattoo-related designs. “They loved what I drew and asked if I had ever done a tattoo before,” she recalls. “Of course I said no, but they then asked if I would like to do one right then and there.” Both excited and a little scared, Megan blurted out, “Yes!” and with that, the shop owner walked her through her very first tattoo. Pleased with how she did, he offered her an apprenticeship that day, and thus began her career.
It would be about three years before Megan Woznicki would become “Megan Massacre,” an alias born in the crucible of the local Hardcore music scene. She explains, “At the time, Hardcore music was very popular with the kids in my neighborhood. My friends and I loved going to these shows and would dance around and have a great time, but there were a lot of bullies and older people who just tried to hurt the kids dancing and beat them up.
“They had these gangs they called ‘crews’ and made up aggressive sounding names for themselves. My friends and I got sick of the treatment and decided to make up our own names and form a crew, basically mocking these bullies. I had no idea it would actually stick!” Even though she had originally thought of “Megan Massacre” as a joke, she had already changed her social media profile and was making a name for herself with it locally as a tattoo artist. When her first magazine cover came out, to her surprise it read ‘Megan Massacre, Philly’s Femme Fatale,’ and with that, Megan Massacre was born.
Megan worked at a handful of tattoo shops in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia’s well-respected Deep Six Laboratory, before she was asked to move to New York to join the cast of NY Ink. She currently tattoos at The Wooster St. Social Club, one of the hottest tattoo shops in Manhattan and the location for NY Ink.
Megan has been tattooing since 2004 and her artwork can be described as creepy yet cute; combining dark imagery with bold vibrant color to create a unique, whimsical style that is of no other. A creative and versatile artist, Megan’s artwork covers the whole spectrum; she’s equally as comfortable working in vivid colors as she is in blacks and grays. She is, however, best known for her bold and brightly colored tattoos that combine multiple styles of tattooing together into one, to create works of art that look as though they may jump right off of your body.
When asked about her passions driving her interest in fashion, Megan quips, “Well, I’m a girl. I like to wear clothes!” She finds it fascinating how “different colors, patters, and fabrics can really transform your look and even boost your confidence and change your personality.” Her personal style ranges from normal every day wear to “really crazy things that most people wouldn’t ever think of walking out of the house in.” She recently posted a selfie with a Tequila Sunrise—the layered red and orange cocktail matched her hair.
To continue this passion, Megan has recently joined forces and added a tattoo shop to New York’s Grit N Glory, a men and women’s clothing and accessory shop as well as an online rock n roll lifestyle shop, in order to combine her tattoo artistry with fashion in New York’s Lower East Side. Megan has begun collaboration with clothing and accessory brand Sprayground as well as launched a design, “Envy,” in a new collaborative fashion collective, American Tattoo between apparel maker Affliction and Inked Magazine.
Since 2007, Megan has also been working as an alternative model and has been featured in many national and international publications—including over eighteen magazine covers—and more to come in 2015. “[Fashion] is art, to me. It’s like I’m a painting and I am painting on myself with clothing and hair and makeup…and style.”
Megan crisscrosses the world as a headlining artist at tattoo expos and gatherings from Sydney, Australia to Halifax, Nova Scotia to Sao Paolo, Brazil to Guatemala City, Guatemala. She meets fans, creates tattoos, and judges tattoo competitions at each. In September, Megan appeared at The International London Tattoo Convention, the greatest, most respected and prestigious body art conventions in the world. Her next trip will take her to New Zealand’s Tattoo and Art Festival in late November, and immediately following, to the largest event of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, the Australian Tattoo and Body Art Expo in Melbourne.
Megan’s advice on getting your first tattoo? “Pick something that’s timeless, positive, and meaningful. Get something that commemorates your children or your parents or a passion or a hobby. Even choose an event that made a positive impact in your life, because those memories will always remain a permanent part of who you are.”
While she’s been making art for a decade, she’s recently begun to re-explore the artistic side and skill that brought her into tattooing in the first place. She’s exhibited in art shows both inside and outside of the tattoo art world, and will be participating in a number of new art shows in the coming year. Her works are in multiple mediums such as watercolor, acrylic, oil, marker, ink and colored pencil.
Megan is currently based in New York City and currently does guest appearances at Wooster St. Social Club.
Megan has just opened a tattoo studio/clothing store in Nov. 2014 called “Grit N Glory” located in Manhattans Lower East Side. It is an edgy, rock N roll styled life-style boutique where you can come and get tattooed, shop and hang out.
