Featured artist & studio: Telisa swan, matriarch

 Telisa Swan is the matriarch of Swan Family Ink, a 100% family owned and operated custom tattoo and body piercing studio. Telisa tattoos along side of her daughter, Cera Swan-Lake and son, Dean Swan, as well as her grandson, Parker Lake who is the piercer for the studio. Her husband Allen, a massage therapist and martial arts and yoga instructor, manages the business end of things.   
 Located in beautiful North Idaho, just a mile from the border of Washington State. The area is known as “The Palouse” which is the native name for the fertile rolling hills of grasslands, surrounded by mountains, forests, lakes and rivers.   
 Telisa, an international award-winning tattoo artist, began her career as a tattoo artist in 1993 while still attending nearby Washington State University where she met her tattoo mentor Russell Alger. She graduated in 1994 and opened her first tattoo Studio in Palouse, Washington later that year. In 1999 the family moved to Moscow, buying an old church that had been converted to a movie theater. Located downtown, the studio is in a perfect spot and the theater marquis is a wonderful place to advertise, post events and announce guests. Over the years they have been fortunate to have used the billboard to announce guests including Lyle Tuttle, Jeff Cornell, and Pat Sinatra (to name a few).  
 Telisa’s daughter, Cera apprenticed in 2000 after graduating high school and Dean began tattooing in 2008. Parker, 17, has recently joined the crew as resident piercer while he finishes high school and makes his way through the local University of Idaho.
 The studio has a warm, homey feel and, in fact, is home to Allen and Telisa, who have an apartment (including a guest room for vising artists), a massage business, and a Pakua martial arts and yoga school, all within the same building. The convenience of living and working in the same building is especially nice during the snowy winter months. The term “sleeping in the needles” comes to mind when describing the Swan family and this family owned and operated business.