About Bear
Kevin Graham Ray, better known as Bear, grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, and has been making art for as long as he can remember. His fascination with tattooing started in 1997, when he got his first tattoo on his 18th birthday.
In 2002, Bear backpacked the northern 1,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Pennsylvania. He gave himself the trail name “Black Beard” after the famous North Carolina pirate and even carried a pirate flag on his pack. Eventually, Black Beard became Black Bear, or just Bear for short.
Bear began tattooing professionally in 2005. As his career grew, his work earned awards and appeared in international tattoo magazines. He became especially well known for his tattoos inspired by the outdoors and his time spent on the Appalachian Trail.
Tattooing changed a lot over the years. Appointment-only shops and artists tattooing only one style became more common. Bear had done well in that world but felt like some of the magic that had drawn him to tattooing was getting lost. He missed walk-ins, walls full of flash and the challenge of being expected to do a little bit of everything.
When his wife’s job went fully remote, they began looking for a small town near the North Carolina mountains where they could put down roots and open the kind of shop that he’d been missing. They looked at several communities, but Elkin was the one that felt like home.
Black Bear opened in January 2021, becoming Elkin’s first tattoo shop. In 2023, Bear purchased a former Sinclair service station on Main Street and moved Black Bear downtown.
There, Bear filled the walls with flash, bringing back the kind of tattoo shop he fell in love with when he was young. Someone can walk in, flip through the flash and get tattooed that day, or bring in an idea and have something drawn just for them.
Putting down roots in Elkin led to getting involved outside the walls of the shop. Bear served on the Main Street Advisory Board and later joined the Elkin Board of Commissioners. He was named a North Carolina Main Street Champion, while Black Bear became a Certified Destination Business through North Carolina’s Main Street program and received the Yadkin Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Community Beautification Award.
Bear and his wife share a love of traveling and the outdoors and were married in Death Valley National Park in 2022. When he’s not tattooing or involved in the community, he enjoys spending time with his wife and the friends they’ve made in Elkin.
After more than twenty years of tattooing, the tattoos that mean the most to Bear aren’t necessarily the biggest or most elaborate. They’re the ones that mean something to the person getting them. It might mark the birth of a child, an accomplishment, or simply a good moment they want to remember.
For Bear, that’s still one of the best parts of being a tattooer.