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Jun 14, 2023

Annual Ink at the Bay fest attracts tattoo artists and tattoo collectors.

The collective buzzing of tattoo machines echoed through the Monterey and

The collective buzzing of tattoo machines echoed through the Monterey and Salinas rooms all weekend long at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. The constant work of tattooists adding permanent and personal art to visitors has come to be expected at Ink at the Bay, which hosted its seventh annual June 8-10.

What's unexpected, at least for organizer Paulina Gonzalez, is how the festival has flourished and become an event that's enjoyed by more than the typical tattoo enthusiast.

"The event is growing steadily each year, more artists and a lot more vendors and a growing car show," Gonzales says. "It's turned to a family event in the process and that's surprising, but in a good way."

The festival began as a venture by her brother Juan Gonzalez, owner of Exclusive Ink in Salinas, and a renowned portrait artist who has zero tattoos himself. What started as a largely family-organized festival is now an established event within the tattoo convention circuit. For Paulina, the best part of the festival's progression is supporting artists.

"About 80 percent of the artists that were with us in the first year of the festival continue to come," she says. "They appreciate the event because they’ve seen it grow and that's rewarding."

This year's festival featured over 140 artists ranging from places as far away as Spain, but the bulk of the came from California.

On Friday evening, the festival's first day, attendees browsed booths of tattoo shops and collectives with binders full of artists’ work. The booth of Fine Line Social Club of Bakersfield distinguished itself with a vending machine, the kind that usually dispenses toys for a few quarters, offering random tattoos for $80.

"It's for people that already have a lot of tattoos," says Fine Line artist Billy "Oz" Johnson. "Or for people who just turned 18 and really want a tattoo."

Over the course of the weekend, about 10 people received random tattoos from the machine.

Most tattoos, however, aren't selected in a roulette-like game of chance. For many artists and clients alike, deep meaning is focal point.

Ramsal Navarro, an artist at 831 Ink in Monterey whose meticulously detailed portrait of Smokey from the film Friday was entered in Friday's best portrait contest, admires tattoos packed with meaning.

"For me, each tattoo I have represents a chapter in my life to reflect on," Navarro says. "They’re like trophies you have on you."

A larger crowd on Saturday saw the booths of artists more busy than before with nearly every tattoo table and chair occupied by a clients clenching their teeth on T-shirts or attentively using their cell phones to ignore the pain.

Seventy-one-year-old Mike Atkinson of Salinas may have worked up as much resistance to that pain as anyone else at the festival.

Atkinson, with the help of his grandson, operates a booth selling skateboard decks his hand-painted with the logos of everything from the Golden State Warriors to the U.S. Marine Corps.

"I’ve been going to conventions since 1994 and this one from the start," Atkinson says. "Now I’m covered in ink."

Atkinson is a fixture of this festival, accompanied by his equally-tattooed wife, Carlinda. There's a cutout of the couple's nearly-nude bodies, covered in colorful tattoos, for visitors to place their heads on and take photos. Atkinson notes with sorrow that Carlinda is absent this year due to serious illness.

"For years, I would get [tattoo] work done along with my wife," He reminisces happily. "We’re at the point where we’re running out of space on our skin, but we have so many many friends from the tattoo scene it feels like another family."

That sense of community appeals to other attendants and artists like Melissa Alicia, a makeup artist and body piercer at Bakersfield's Sykotic Ink. Her fiance and tattoo artist, C.J. Quiroz, earned the award for Best Lettering at last year's fest and entered a piece for Sunday's contest.

"This industry is still frowned upon in some ways," Alicia says. "So when we go to shows we feel more accepted. In fact, it's weird to see someone without any tattoos here."

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