Get ‘Inked’ in Winchester . . . underground!

From a young age, Ashlee Horsley’s pas­sion for art was evi­dent, even at the ten­der age of seven.

“My grand­moth­er was a painter, and she always watched Bob Ross in the morn­ings. She taught me how to paint, but I was always very inse­cure about my art.”

Ashlee grew up in Portsmouth, Ohio, and moved to Kentucky about 25 years ago. She cur­rent­ly lives in Flemingsburg but plans to even­tu­al­ly move to Winchester.

“[Winchester] is a dif­fer­ent atmos­phere than I’m used to, but I love it here. The peo­ple are very nice and very invit­ing. We’ve had the shop open for about three months, but this has been a plan for a year and a half now. So, it’s final­ly happening.”

Ashlee co-owns Inked Under Ground with her busi­ness part­ner, Ren Elam. The shop is locat­ed at 10 West Broadway in down­town Winchester, in the won­der­ful­ly restored build­ing that includes High Speed Collectibles on the ground floor. But to get to Inked Under Ground, as the name implies, you descend a set of steps from street lev­el down to the basement.

Despite her life-long inter­est in art, Ashlee only recent­ly got into the busi­ness of being a tat­too artist.

“I used to work with spe­cial needs. I did that for eight years. While I was doing that, I paint­ed a mur­al at the ani­mal shel­ter in Morehead. I had a friend I worked with at DNS, where I worked with the spe­cial needs, and she opened a tat­too shop in Morehead. And they were tak­ing appren­tices. And one day, I went in there and got a tat­too, and they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re tak­ing appren­tices in.’ So, I start­ed there in that shop.”

Eventually, Ashlee wound up work­ing at a tat­too shop in London, mak­ing a four-hour com­mute from Flemingsburg along with Ren. Already famil­iar with the area, she decid­ed to look for a place in Winchester to open a shop with Ren. So, they start­ed scout­ing pos­si­ble loca­tions here.

“I start­ed ask­ing around the cof­fee shops and every­where, basi­cal­ly around the neigh­bor­hood, I was like, ‘Are there any spaces for rent?’ and some­one said, ‘Talk to Adam [Kidd].’ ”

When Ashlee and Adam con­nect­ed, he told her about the under­ground space he was plan­ning to renovate.

“He told me he had this space under­ground that has­n’t been used in 30-some­thing years. And let me tell you, when we came down here, I was so skep­ti­cal! The roof was col­lapsed, and the debris was hor­ri­ble. I mean, it had­n’t been used in 30 years. There’s a tun­nel back there that was col­lapsed. It was in rough shape and every­body’s like, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? It’s in rough shape.’ I’m like, you know what, it has poten­tial, I think. And I did­n’t know Adam, but I thought he could turn it into some­thing. And some­thing told me not to give up, just to trust the process.

“It took a year and a half to get it fixed up. And there were times I want­ed to give up because of all the hur­dles. So, a year and a half lat­er, here we are.”

But just as the brand-new busi­ness was final­ly open, yet anoth­er hur­dle emerged. The big sew­er project down­town came to Broadway. Anyone who has attempt­ed to nav­i­gate Maple, Broadway, and envi­rons late­ly knows the agony of deal­ing with torn-up streets, new traf­fic pat­terns, tem­po­rary stop­lights, and even whol­ly closed streets. As frus­trat­ing as the project has been for down­town dri­vers, it has also caused major headaches for down­town busi­ness own­ers, as their cus­tomers strug­gle to get to their front doors.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel.

“It’s def­i­nite­ly frus­trat­ing,” Ashlee says. “They say three weeks left of this, and then it’s back to nor­mal. But we still make it work. We try to adver­tise as much as pos­si­ble, and so far, so good. We’ve had busi­ness. I mean, you’re gonna face hur­dles no mat­ter what. So we try to make the best of it.”

Ashlee and Ren are plan­ning their “long-await­ed” rib­bon cut­ting and grand open­ing this Friday (May 10). The event will take place from 4 to 6 PM. It’s a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet the own­ers and staff and maybe even get a tat­too while you’re at it. 

Inked Under Ground is locat­ed at 10 West Broadway, at the inter­sec­tion of Main and Broadway. Look for the sign just above the stair­way. It is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 12 to 8 p.m. Find Inked Under Ground on Facebook.