“It's a cool life we live. We're all very much city-living hippies, you know?” says owner Brandon Crawford of his commune-like establishment.
The old building may be small (a converted family home from yesteryear), but Franklin’s serves a myriad of unique functions beyond its front entrance. It might be locked, but as the handwritten sign taped to the door reads, it’s never closed. Franklin’s is Dallas’ only 24-hour tattoo shop. All you have to do is call (469-904-2665) to be quickly and warmly welcomed inside by a staff member, possibly long-time in-house tattooers Green Bean or Viper, maybe even Crawford himself.
Inside, the dark wood-paneled walls are covered in art of every style you could think of. A rack of T-shirts stands in the middle of the shop floor just ahead of a long counter of glass display cases housing an extensive selection of high-end, professional-grade tattoo ink and tattoo machines smelted and manufactured on-site by Crawford’s own brand, Brass Made.
“We don't sell tattoo supplies to anybody," he says. "We're professionals only. I only sell to shops that I respect and tattooers that I respect. We are not [selling] to the public.
"I would never sell tattooing out for a dollar at all. I'd rather go broke [and have] everybody look at me and say, ‘Brandon was really tried and true’. That means something to me, really holding to these values of what a tattooer is and should be. And holding to that honor, I put that over a dollar bill any day of the week.”
Brandon Crawford sells Franklin's high-end tattoo supplies only to shops and artists he respects.
Franklin's Tattoo and Supply
A drawing area at the top landing, where artists prepare for their clients and practice their craft, is surrounded by vividly painted work rooms adorned with even more hand-painted artwork and trinkets. There's a giant traditional-style portrait on wood cutout over a signed Zao album cover, huge scrolls of colorful Japanese dragons and koi, a shelf of Jesus and Mary icons propping up photos of lost loved ones (gone but never forgotten) and industrial storage cabinets adorned with red and black jinx-removing candles straight from the Mexican botanicas.
If you’re a newcomer, Crawford might take you out to the enormous backyard for the full tour. A large wooden performance stage is where he and the staff lift weights and do yoga when no events are going on. (Crawford doesn’t charge local bands and artists to book free shows or pop-up maker’s markets at Franklin’s.) In the detached garage converted to a metal shop, tattoo machines are produced the old-school way — styrofoam molds are immersed in cans of sand and poured over with molten brass. The result is a traditionally forged high-end tool of the trade.
If you’re there in the early afternoon you might just catch veteran tattooer Jon Chancey emerging from his motorhome on the other side of the lot, after sleeping off a long night of working walk-ins and appointments. He’ll be heading into the building to sip a “morning” coffee at the drawing table while he outlines some new work.
In the yard, you might catch some of the unhoused neighbors sipping coffee, eating lunch or shooting the breeze. They’re friends of the shop, dwellers of the back alley that Crawford and the staff call Afghanistan (a reference to the country that produces more opium than anywhere in the world). Crawford always makes sure everyone in the alley is fed. And as often as possible, he gives them some paying work to do.
Franklin’s trained-up in-house piercer, Viper, will tell you that’s how this place saved his life.
“When I got this place, Viper just crawled out of the bushes out there,” says Crawford. “He was highly addicted. He was really bad off, and on our first day he was like ‘Can I help y'all?’ and we really needed help actually you know? And now, he's been with me for almost nine years. He's three years sober. I helped him get into the Salvation Army and the 24-Hour Club [a sober-living facility], I bought him a car two Christmases ago. And now he has a brand new apartment right down the street. He's got a girlfriend now. He wears cologne.”
Franklin’s has helped a lot of people get sober and turn their life around. Though he’s never been through addiction himself, Brandon Crawford is no stranger to hard knocks. His story begins and remains to unfold in East Dallas. He was born right down the street from the shop at Baylor Hospital.
He started tattooing at age 13 while living in a boy's home, before apprenticing under Jon Chancey. They’re technically roommates now, with Chancey in the camper out back and Crawford fashioning his own bedroom back behind the retail area, attached to the building’s original kitchen.
Franklin’s is Brandon’s home, work, his means of giving back to his community — it’s his life. Keeping the lights on isn’t easy, but it’s more than a job.
“We have struggled and we have fought and we have watched [tattooing] be devalued,” he says. “I'm at a point in my life where I'd like a wife. I haven't had a girlfriend in years, I haven't been able to date, I don't even have that time in my life because it's been such a struggle to keep this place alive.”
Despite the struggles of running a small business and the struggles of East Dallas’ meaner streets — Franklin’s staff is a family. They don’t hesitate to band together for each other and for their community. This is not your everyday run-of-the-mill tattoo parlor. This is a house to gather, a house of refuge and a house of integrity — on a mission to honor the sacred traditions of tattooing and loving thy neighbor.
