"Sellin Scabs Since 08"
An Interview with Michael Ferrera of Rose Tattoo Club
Photos and Words By: Audrey Ryland
April 27th, 2025
Exactly this time last year, I was sitting in a fold-out chair at Rose Tattoo Club getting some sweet new ink from Savannah artist Michael Ferrera. I had been wanting a tattoo of a swallow and Michael executed the design beautifully. There was something that instantly made me trust him. Maybe it was the way he set up his station like it was nothing or how he interacted with the other artists like they were one big family. There are many things that people preconceive about tattoo artists. Many assume them to be unkind, rude, and rough around the edges. But Michael made me feel right at home. For just a blip in time, I too felt like I was a part of this family, perhaps as the baby who still hasn’t learned to walk yet but can kind of pick up what everybody else is putting down.
It's a year later and here I am again. Last time we sat across from each other, Michael was helping metell a story – the one that now lives on my arm forever. Today, I’m back to hear more about the artist whose work I wear every day. From getting tattooed by the oldest tattoo artist alive to opening up a shop with his closest buddies, Michael is a doer.
Michael, 35, was born in Germany. Thanks to his father’s service in the military, he’s lived in Kansas, North Carolina, Belgium, California (where his parents now live), and now Savannah, Georgia where he has settled in nicely, being here in and out for 17 years now. Michael first started tattooing like any cool kid does – on himself. “I started doing little stick-and-pokes on myself when I was like 13, it’s just always kind of been around.” He goes on to tell me more about how in high school he would tattoo his friends Josh and Sean. “I just gave everybody dumb little ankle tattoos!”
“I’ve always been into tattoos. Both of my parents are covered in them. My dad is super covered, like skulls on his arms, all that stuff. He was in a metal band when I was a kid too. Really cool.”
His dad had a subscription to TATTOO Magazine that constantly found its way into his hands. Like how some kids are drawn to sports or video games, Michael fell hard for ink. “I just grew up reading those magazines, I thought they were so rad.”
In the magazines Michael read, there were stories of people traveling and getting tattooed in the mountains of “crazy far away countries.” There’s no way he would have known then, but just a few months ago, Michael traveled to the mountains of the Philippines, the country where his mother was born, and got tattooed by Apo Whang-Od, the oldest tattoo artist alive. At 108 years old, she tattooed Michael’s right hand with her signature three symbolic dots. Apo’s niece also gave Michael a fern on the side of his face, representing in his words, “prosperity and good fortune and stuff.”
“It was crazy. I had never been there. My mom hasn’t even been back since she was 5. They make the little tattoo tool out of a bamboo shoot and a thorn, then use a stick and tap it in.”
Michael has worked in various shops in his lifetime, his first one accepting him only three months out of high school at age 18. He laughs as he tells me about his “shitty little portfolio full of house tattoos” he had done from around age 16 up until that point. “I was like, ‘Hey! I don’t have much, but I’m doing tats!’” When asked if he still has that portfolio, he shakes his head.
While on the road and away from Savannah, Michael says that’s when he really learned more about how to tattoo. After that period, he returned to Savannah where his family had been living and settled in at another shop. He was working there for 10 years with some good buddies and a talented group of artists. As the years went on, he began craving something different.
Once he realized that this was a shared thought among the other artists he was close to, they decided to start a new chapter. It was time for Michael to nurture a new kind of baby, Rose Tattoo Club.
“I was on the road, hopping trains, being transient; I just kinda like lost all my stuff.”
“The shop was somebody else’s baby.”
From opening day March 1st of 2024, Rose Tattoo Club has quickly become a well-trusted favorite shop of Savannah. With allegedly one of the largest flash walls in America, Rose Tattoo Club is visually striking and undeniably cool. Michael preaches to me about how lucky he feels to be a part of Rose. “Being able to work with my best friends is the best thing for my art. It’s where I’m the most comfortable. We all push each other.” The creativity is basically pouring out from the artists and into the skin.
It amazes me how an artist, like Michael who has given over 12,000 tattoos in his lifetime, can continue to make uniquely beautiful art every day. We talked a little bit about the weight of that number.
“It’s a very intense thing. I would mess up tattoos when I was younger because I’m, well, a human, and I would misspell something or whatever the situation might be; it hits you real hard.”
But what is growth without mistakes and life without learning? Now, as a seasoned tattoo artist, Michael says that collaboration is such a beautiful and rewarding part of the process. Working with the client, gathering new ideas, keeping it new and fun, that’s what it’s all about. Making a tattoo that starts off only as an idea come to life is such a magical thing for Michael. There’s no job quite like this one.
“It’s fun not fully knowing what I’m gonna do every day but knowing that it’s gonna be awesome.”
Michael is an artist to the core, but most importantly a friend to all. His love for his friends runs deep, and you feel it from the moment you step inside Rose Tattoo Club. From train hopping, to chilling in San Diego, to getting tattooed by the oldest tattooer alive in the mountains of the Philippines, Michael’s talent is a permanent gift.
📍 2424 Drayton St APT G, Savannah, GA 31401