Enchanted Artists Open Trolsk

You know all those cheery, frost-hewn Canadian landscapes and delightful little snowmen that adorn most store fronts around Brandon in the winter? I’m sure each one of you has seen many of them over this holiday season, but what you may not have known is that they are done by a local artist by the name of Anne Boychuk.

Anne has been painting, sculpting, drawing, and just plain being artsy most of her life. She has always had an imaginative drive to create, and is someone who can sit and talk for as long as there is an ear to listen to her. Which is exactly what she and I did when I visited her, Eric and Chris in their newly opened shop, Trolsk Glaze and Ink, downtown next to Pennywise Books on Rosser Ave.

Trolsk is Brandon’s newest tattoo parlor, offering not only skin art, but an array of books, troll beads and other holistic trinkets. They also intend to use the shop as a means of showcasing artists’ work from across Manitoba with the hopes of getting work from artists from all across the country.

While the business is new, the building is far from it. Anne acquired the well-over-hundred-year-old building about ten years ago. Purchased with her truck as collateral, Anne originally sought out the building as a studio space for her to pursue her artistic endeavors, but soon realized the potential of having several hundred square feet of space in the heart of Brandon’s downtown.
“Chris Chrupalo and I had been painting in Boissevain together, and on those drives we began to toy with the idea of using the space as a shop as well as a studio.” Anne explains. “Chris had been into tattooing and suggested the idea of using the space as a tattoo parlor, and that’s when Eric came into the equation.”

Trolsk’s resident tattooist, Eric Pellitier, once a member of the team at Adam’s Body Art, has been inking people for over twenty years since he was a teenager.

“I have always been an artist” Eric begins. “I wanted a tattoo when I was about sixteen, and when it turned out to be not quiet what I wanted, I just took the gun from the guy and touched it up myself. He liked it so much that he got me to ink him right there. The rest is history.” Walking into Trolsk I couldn’t help but notice that it didn’t have the traditional look of a tattoo parlor. There are no images of random flash on the walls or booklets filled with the same, it is a very simple, very personal shop with an almost zen-like atmosphere.

“I want my clients to really consider what they are getting, you know?” Eric tells me, “a tattoo is something for life and I like my clients to have a piece that they will enjoy for the rest of their lives. That is what I like about the intimacy of this place.”

Trolsk is located on the 1100 block of Rosser Avenue, and can be reached at trolsk1033rosser@gmail.com

Look for Tattoo of the week in the next issue of The Quill.