When, in the wake of University of the Art’s sudden closure last summer, 2017 alumnus Jess Swift wanted to do something that would help students and fellow graduates, she knew exactly where to turn: Tattooed Mom, a South Street dive bar that has been a staple of the Philly arts and culture scene for 28 years.

First in January and then in May, the bar — run by co-founder and owner Robert Perry — hung alumni art on the walls and sold them to patrons. Nearly a year later, Swift is in the process of planning future Tattooed Mom gatherings to support the UArts community. It’s just one of the bar’s more than 300 events each year that support the artistic and queer communities in the city.

“I’ve been getting messages like, thanks so much for doing this because not a lot has been happening for the community,” Swift says. “Philly is so ingrained in arts and culture and being a birthplace of community and that really feels reflected when you walk into TMoms.”

Covering every inch of wall space at Tattooed Mom are stickers, wheatpastes and street art from various artists. There are crocheted wall hangings, sketches and works done with spray paint: takes on Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, hearts, and fingers flashing peace signs. The upstairs is intentionally uncurated — anyone can walk in and add to the walls. Big name celebrities like 50 Cent and Tony Hawk have stopped by, but many of the people who come in to share their art or even just hang out are people who are just trying out something for the first time.

“Every night is a chance to create something legendary here,” Perry says.

Now, with both local challenges and federal funding cuts to arts and humanities, Tattooed Mom has become even more vital to Philly’s artists and people who want to be around artists.

Building a space for weirdos

When Perry and his founding partner, Kathy “Mom” Hughes, started Tattooed Mom in 1997, they were looking to create a place that continued the “legacy of weirdos on South Street,” he says. In the 1960s, when the neighborhood fought and won a battle to prevent a Crosstown Expressway from demolishing both South and Bainbridge streets, the thoroughfare embraced its moniker as “the hippest street in town.” Through the years, the thoroughfare has cycled through waves of popularity, from punk, into coffee houses, kitschy shops and sneaker emporiums, until today, when many storefronts remain empty. But Tattooed Mom stands as an enduring pillar of creativity and counterculture.

“We wanted something that would be a place where people, weirdos like us, could go,” Perry says.

They landed on a two-story spot on the 500 block of South Street. The first floor’s decor has a “grandma on acid” vibe. Think: psychedelic green walls, gold bar stools and art from some of the better known artists who’ve passed through: a piece by Philly-born artist Steve Powers and one by the LA-based street artist Wrdsmth. The windows look out onto an alley mural painted by a Tattooed Mom bartender.

“I wanted to walk away from an event and feel that I’d actually helped someone … that you’d made an impact.” — Sarah Cowell, Tattooed Mom

The second floor started off with blank walls. Perry and Hughes encouraged the bar’s patrons to add their own art. Perry lovingly refers to it now as “beautiful chaos,” with art covering not only every inch of wall, but also many of the vintage bumper cars that have been converted into booths.

“Little by little — tag by tag, sticker by sticker, wheatpaste by wheatpaste — it turned into what you see upstairs now, which is an explosion of creative expression. Over the years, thousands of artists from all over the world have come through and added their contribution,” Perry says.

In 2010, Hughes sold her portion of the business to Perry so she could focus on running her family business in Willow Grove. Perry has continued running it ever since.

An artistic coming of age

The second floor isn’t just a place where artists can decorate the walls, however. It’s also an event venue that hosts poetry and prose readings, stand-up comedy and drag shows. Artists also display their work there, gallery style, hung atop the stickers. For years, Tattooed Mom hosted the senior showcase for UArt’s photography students. On the last Tuesday of every month, Philly comics Tan Hoang and Joe Bell host Tattooed Momedy, a free stand-up comedy show.

Artists have made connections there and worked on collaborations with one another. “A photographer might do a photo shoot for a fashion designer. A drag artist might end up on a comedy show bill,” Perry says. But he especially loves it when someone tries something new, something they fear might be too strange for a regular audience.

“I’ve had so many instances where people were like … I did my first ever pop-up here. I read poetry in public for the first time here. I performed drag for the first time here. I did comedy for the first time here,” Perry says. “Those, to me, are the super memorable ones, because it’s the birth of an artist in a way. It’s seeing that come to life here, and having people feel that this is a place that is conducive to encouragement that is really beautiful to me.”

Anyone is welcome to host an event at the bar, by emailing Event Manager Sarah Cowell. There is no fee, and promotion on the bar’s website and social media channels is free. All they ask is that the event remains as free to attend as possible. If you’re a writer and you want to have a bookseller there, Tattooed Mom doesn’t take a cut of the sales, like other venues.

“There has to be a home for creative people, for weirdos, for people who want to try things out, for people who want to create and make and be part of community.” — Sarah Cowell, Tattooed Mom

“I wanted to walk away from an event and feel that I’d actually helped someone, that we’d made an impact in our community,” Cowell says. “There has to be a home for creative people, for weirdos, for people who want to try things out, for people who want to create and make and be part of community. There has to be a space that is accessible, that is vocally open, that is saying — not just in-person through signage, but also online — they are willing to stand up and show up for the communities that come to us.”

Philly author Emma Copley Eisenberg started going to Tattooed Mom soon after she graduated from Haverford. She went for the Tire Fire Reading series hosted by Annie Liontas and Sarah Rose Etter, the queer and trans reading series You Can’t Kill a Poet run by Boston Gordon and others.

As a young writer, she was looking for places that felt nurturing and supportive and where she could learn from other writers — and particularly other queer writers like herself. It was encouraging to go to Tattooed Mom and for readings by other queer writers, like Carmen Maria Machado, who were finding a lot of success. This summer, Copley Eisenberg is paying-it-forward with her own reading there on June 6, celebrating six novels by queer writers. Torrey Peters, Kristen Arnett, Lydi Conklin, Alejandro Heredia, Melissa Mogollon and Copley Eisenberg will be reading.

“It was a really sweet space that brought so many amazing writers, many of whom have blown up and could fill auditoriums now,” Copley Eisenberg says. “I got to see them in that really intimate space at Tattooed Mom’s.”

A home during times of crisis

Tattooed Mom has become a refuge for artists in recent years, not only after the abrupt closure of UArts and slower demise of PAFA, but also as the City cuts arts funding. Mayor Parker’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposes reducing contributions to both Mural Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art by $500,000 each.

This comes at a time when the federal government has cut the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), wiping out existing grants to artists. Trump has said he’d like to eliminate both the NEH and the National Endowment for the Arts entirely.

Artists of color, immigrant artists and queer artists and others who the Trump administration believes fall under their anti-diversity, equity and inclusion crusade will see their funding further cut as the administration has ordered that grant funded work not promote DEI or “gender ideology.”

A bar isn’t going to be able to address these persistent funding issues and attacks on the arts, but it does provide artists room to showcase their work, collaborate and gather in community.

That said, Perry has tried to use his platform to advocate for arts funding. The bar hosts donation days for arts and community organizations. They recently held an art sale that raised $5,000 for Juntos, the South Philly-based community organization that supports Latino immigrants.

In January, they partnered with the Dream-Escape library in Kensington to host a fundraiser as part of the January version of Tattooed Mom’s thrice-annual Thirsty Walls event. They started hosting Thirsty Walls after the pandemic to help build community again after Covid lockdowns. At first, the bar invited people to come add to Tattooed Mom’s walls. Now, artists come to Thirsty Walls and do installations, sometimes with 3-D printers, in addition to adding their piece to the walls.

On May 22, they’re hosting their second-of-the-year Thirsty Walls event. Cowell says they don’t yet have a partner for this event, but they frequently do donation day events and may still partner with a nonprofit. In March, they partnered with Galaei for a fundraiser as part of Trans Day Of Visibility. Then on May 29, they’re hosting the Big Gay Writing Project open mic and karaoke ahead of Pride month.

“The more we can do to be a voice of compassion and a voice of understanding and a voice of acceptance and really just be the mom — be the comfortable, matriarchal figure — and say no, this is the place where you’re f—ing welcome, [then the more] we can be the place that is exactly what you make it,” Cowell says.

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