(This week The Columbian-Progress spotlights Twist of Fate Tattoos owner Mark Carithers.)
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born in Brookhaven on Sept. 25, 1968.
Q: Where did you attend school?
A: I attended Enterprise Attendance Center in Lincoln County.
Q: Where all have you lived?
A: I lived in Lincoln County in 42 years and in Columbia since 2010.
Q: Where do you work? Tell us about your job/company.
A: I own and operate Twist of Fate Tattoos on Main Street in Columbia. I’m involved with a lot of community work with the mayor, Justin McKenzie, and our core group. We do the cruise-ins, the car show this Saturday, the haunted house, the park cleanup and just about anything I can be involved in. I build steam-punk items, too. I recycle old stuff into new, useful stuff. There’s tons of things that I do.
Q: What led you to your profession as a tattoo artist?
A: I came up old school and hard. We worked from a very young age. I started tattooing when I was 26 or 27. I think God felt sorry for me because I had such a rough go up until then that he gave me something that would be easy on me for the second part of my journey.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your job?
A: Meeting the different walks of life. There’s always different people coming in, and you get to keep up with what’s going on. Once you get to a certain age, you get out of circulation and lose touch with reality, so this kind of keeps you based with how everything’s going.
Q: What was your first job?
A: At 14, I went to work on a dairy. I would get up to work in the morning at 4 o’clock, milk cows, clean the barn, then I would go to school. When I got out of school at 3, I would go feed the cows, milk them again and clean the barn again. I would repeat that every day.
Q: Who is the person who has been most influential in your life?
A: It’s been a multitude of people. Right now in my present position of where I’m at, my core group of friends — Joe Joe and Maria Temples, Nick and Stacy Cavanaugh, Mark Rogers and Amelia when she was with us, Justin and Amy McKenzie and their family — they constantly set the example of how we can be and the things we can do if we get up and apply ourselves. Those guys are my biggest inspiration.
Q: If you had to relive one day from life over and over again, what day would you choose?
A: I’m going to go with the July cruise-in. I could relive that day over and over just for the mass amounts of people that came downtown, everybody was happy, everybody was smiling and everything was good. I could do that every day.
Q: Do you have any children?
A: I have three kids. I have Carrie who is 30. I have Marka who is 27. And everybody knows Hadley; she’s like one of the most famous kids here and she’s 6.
Q: If you could have anything for your last meal on earth, what would it be?
A: A rare ribeye steak.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
A: I would go to Germany. I had an exchange student in the ‘90s that came and stayed with us for a year from Germany. I’d want to go for the history and beauty of the place itself. I would love to go there, but if I couldn’t go there, then it would definitely be Ireland.
Q: What hobbies/activities do you like to do in your spare time?
A: I build my steam-punk items and sell those. I spend as much time as possible with Hadley. Her and I do tons of things together. I’m always with my group of friends going to do something together.
Q: What do you enjoy most about living and working in Columbia and Marion County?
A: Probably the unity of the community — just how people come together when they’re needed. I love the allure of downtown. Main Street is beautiful. The courthouse is beautiful. The people are really welcoming.
Q: If you could have lunch with anyone from your life or history, who would it be and why?
A: I would have to say Edgar Allan Poe. I’ve always had an attachment to Poe. When I was coming up, there was an Alfred Hitchcock series and it was like short tales of horror. I could remember watching them with my mother. There was a scene on the “Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, and it has stuck with me. He was like the precursor to Stephen King.
Q: How would you like to be remembered?
A: I would like to be remembered as the guy who shouldn’t do and accomplish the things that he did.
Q: What moment in your life has had the biggest impact on you?
A: When I was driving age, which was 14 back then, and everybody had their parents buying them vehicles, my dad looked at me and said, ‘Son, I can’t buy you the things these other kids have, but I can teach you how to get it.’ That right there. I was taught to work.
Q: Would you rather read a good book or watch a good movie and why?
A: Watch a good movie. I don’t read at all, which is horrid, I know. So many people say books are so much better, but I don’t sit still long enough to read a book. My life is generally up at 5 a.m., in bed at midnight and going that whole entire time, then do it again the next day. I don’t really slow down.
— Joshua Campbell
Pictured above: Mark Carithers hand draws a tattoo for a customer at his shop, Twist of Fate Tattoos, on Main Street in Columbia. Carithers has spent nearly half of his life as a tattoo artist. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
