Eddie Yeary and Timothy ‘Tim’ Havens
When someone mentions Vinton Virginia, award winning tattooing is not usually something that comes to mind. However, for twenty years as of March 2023, Vinton has been home to one of the valley’s oldest, continually operating tattoo studios. Cherry Bomb Tattooing and Piercing has been operating in Vinton for two decades now, bringing quality artwork and piercings not only to their wonderful local clientele, but to customers and collectors from all over the world and all walks of life.
In March of 2003, Cherry Bomb opened its doors at 360 East Virginia Avenue in a small upstairs location. Their goal was to provide a relaxing atmosphere, quality tattooing and piercing services, and a diverse array of tattooing styles to make customers’ dreams become reality. Timothy ‘Tim’ Havens, owner and award-winning artist at Cherry Bomb, is confident when he says, “twenty years later, the studio has more than accomplished this goal.”
Not originally a Vinton native, Tim grew up in Rural Retreat, a small town in Southwest Virginia where good paying jobs were few and far between. There was also no opportunity to find work that would interest him and feed his craving for artistic expression. This environment of banality is what spurred Tim from an early age to set his sights on tattooing. It was a medium that really reached out and appealed to him. Also, there weren’t as many people doing it. “Everyone who is an artist can draw something on paper,” says Tim, “but not everyone who is an artist can draw something on skin.”
After freelancing for a time and working for Rendezvous Tattoo in Downtown Blacksburg, Tim moved to Roanoke and began working in another tattoo studio in Southwest Roanoke. This is where he met Eddie Yeary, a longtime friend and business partner.
Before beginning his career in tattooing, Eddie was a very talented airbrush designer who sold T-Shirts to that same Southwest tattoo studio. He would later work there after seeing a “Help Wanted” sign in the window one day in 1993. Not having tattooed before, or even gotten one himself, Eddie took a chance, walked in that day, and worked for years honing his craft. He also won several industry convention awards, as well as respect in the tattooing circuits for, amongst other things, his revolutionary approach of bringing negative space into tattooing.
At the Southwest Roanoke studio where they both worked, neither Tim nor Eddie felt they were being treated fairly. Unfortunately, they also struggled to work happily with the belligerent and often unprofessional owner. Eventually, Tim finally had enough and found a small upstairs place for a studio in Vinton that he, and later Eddie, could call their own. Cherry Bomb Tattooing and Piercing opened its doors in 2003. Even before their services were very mainstream or accepted by some Vinton citizens, Cherry Bomb made it a priority to support and engage with the Vinton community and has continued supporting local charities and causes every year. Throughout their twenty years of business, Cherry Bomb switched locations twice, but made the move back to their 360 East Virginia Avenue location in 2017.
With a combined fifty-five years of tattooing experience between them, Tim and Eddie have been around long enough to witness the vast change in clientele and societal attitudes towards the tattooing industry. Tim remembers a time when, “people would cross to the other side of the street just to avoid you if you had visible tattoos, and now it’s almost out of the ordinary for someone to not have tattoos.”
Times have definitely changed. Businesses have loosened their body art restrictions, and a younger generation has had the opportunity to grow into adulthood without being so affected by previous generations’ bias toward tattooing. In the past decade or so, more and more people have come to feel comfortable enough to participate in this artistic form of self-expression.
Currently, Cherry Bomb Tattooing and Piercing is operating by appointment only due to Tim and Eddie being consistently overbooked. However, Tim has big plans in the works for Cherry Bomb’s future. Though he has thoroughly enjoyed being back in the original studio location, Tim has recognized the need to expand in order to offer more flexibility and appointment availability to Cherry Bomb’s customers. This planned expansion includes adding another artist to the studio to hopefully allow customers without appointments to come in to get work done during Cherry Bomb’s posted hours. It also includes expanding the physical space of the studio, branching out from the small portion they now occupy, to encompass the rest of the upstairs floor of the building. Tim is also very excited about diversifying the services offered at the studio and hopes within the next two years to be able to offer laser tattoo removal to his customers.
Over the course of their twenty years in business, Cherry Bomb Tattooing and Piercing has strived to go above and beyond in the industry while also remaining a local gem, committed to doing their part and serving the Vinton community. When he first arrived in Vinton Virginia over twenty years ago, Tim saw a small sticker on a shop window that said “Vinton, Roanoke’s Best Kept Secret”. After all these years, Tim still remembers that sticker and has come to think of his studio as “Vinton’s Best Kept Secret.”
Cherry Bomb Tattooing and Piercing
Timothy ‘Tim’ Havens • 540-344-3488
537 S Pollard St, Vinton, VA
www.cherrybomb.studio