Angel Quinonez started tattooing in Richmond about eight years ago. He was in Charlotte, fresh off working at the shop featured on VH1’s “Black Ink Crew” in Harlem, when his friend suggested he come to Richmond and visit Lucky 13 Tattoo & Piercing.

A lifelong artist, Quinonez was at a transition point in his life – he was thinking about going back to his native New England and opening a shop in Boston. He found that Richmond, for its size, had a vibrant tattoo scene good for steady income. 

“I hung out for a week, and my friend said, ‘stay another week,’ and the money was good. Tattooing is a big staple in Richmond,” he said. “Even though I was working at a shop in New York City that was on TV, I think that more people per capita are getting tattoos in Richmond.”

Once a souvenir from prison or the military, tattoos are more widely-accepted than ever, showing up in corporate boardrooms and on employees at Disney parks. A 2023 survey from the Pew Research Center found that 32% of Americans have a tattoo.

But even though shows like “LA Ink” and “Miami Ink” helped push tattooing into the mainstream in the early 21st century, the art form has been prevalent in Richmond for decades. One of the first tattoo festivals in the U.S. was held here in the late 1980s, and in 2010, Richmond was ranked No. 3 on a list of cities with the highest numbers of tattoo shops per capita, behind only Las Vegas and Miami. At the time, TotalBeauty.com reported that the city averaged 14.5 tattoo shops per 100,000 people; back then, Richmond’s population was about 204,000. 

Local artists feel there’s no question that the city is bursting at the seams with tattoo talent. Richmond’s vibrant artistic scene, music scene and well-known art program at Virginia Commonwealth University are factors, said Jesse Smith, owner of Loose Screw Tattoo in Carytown.

“I’ve tattooed all over California, and all over the west coast. Richmond per capita is the best in my opinion,” he said. “If you try to compare it to New York or Paris, there’s a ton of talent there, but there’s also a ton of people and a ton of garbage too. The quality of tattooing and the quality of art, music, and food is way better in Richmond than most places.”

The business of artistry

The cities of Richmond and Virginia Beach have about the same number of tattoo parlors, according to data from the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, but Virginia Beach has more registered tattoo artists. 

To be a tattoo artist is to be a business, Smith said. Artists tend to be classified as independent contractors, filling out a Form 1099-K with their employers, paying taxes at the end of the year, and buying health insurance through the marketplace. Some independent artists book only via email or Instagram direct messaging, using social media to showcase their work, while others, mostly longtime tattooers, prefer to rely solely on word of mouth, said Brandon Clark, who manages Yellow Bird Tattoo on Main Street in the Fan. 

“There’s one guy here whose Instagram would have you think he’s dead,” Clark said. 

Tension can sometimes exist between the old guard and newer artists who might have learned by ordering a tattoo kit on Amazon during the pandemic, Quinonez said. Shows like “Black Ink Crew” and “Ink Master” influenced a lot of people, he said, to the point where everyone thought they could be a tattoo artist. Now people can pay for apprenticeships, a deviation from the old way where artists paid their dues essentially interning for seasoned professionals. 

Smith said he was an independent contractor for 14 years before opening Loose Screw in 2011. Artists at Loose Screw are Form W-2 employees, which Smith said was intentional.

“My goal in opening Loose Screw was to create an environment where the business is taken care of for the artists, so I ended up shifting to employees,” he said. “They have medical, dental, and retirement options, and we do paid time off and take care of supplies. We try to make it a comfortable environment so people don’t have to focus on that stuff.”

Tattoo artists are also independent contractors at River City Tattoo & Piercing Co. at the corner of Arthur Ashe Boulevard and W. Leigh Street. Piercers are hourly, said Morgan Strong, the shop’s piercing manager. River City has four shops and about 60 employees, and piercing, like tattooing, is a busy gig.

“I book a minimum of two piercings per hour, in half hour blocks. We usually have a minimum of 18 appointments a day,” Strong said. “Downtime is rare – this location is amazing.” 

Almost 40 years of tattoo conventions

Back in the 1980s, way before tattoos hit the mainstream, artists in Richmond put together a tattoo festival. The convention grew out of a culture of tattoo clubs, Smith said, and a man named Grandpa Groovy founded the International Tattoo Artists Guild, creating a code of ethics for industry professionals. The first Richmond Tattoo & Arts Convention was held in 1988, about 12 years after the first recorded tattoo festival was held in Houston, Texas. 

In 1989, Grandpa Groovy stepped down, and David “Crazy Ace” Daniels and L. Lady Daniels took over. Crazy Ace eventually opened several shops called Way Cool Tattoo across the U.S. and Canada, according to the convention’s website. 

Smith took over the festival in 2016. Held at the DoubleTree by Hilton - Midlothian, the event hosts about 175 artists and brings 3,500 people through the door over the course of a weekend in October. This year’s festival is scheduled for Oct. 17-19. 

The hotel, Smith said, is where the old Richmond tattoo clubs would meet up. 

Even as Richmond continues to change, with new apartment and condo buildings popping up in neighborhoods like Scott’s Addition, Smith said he’s confident that the city will hold onto its gritty, artistic roots. Richmond has changed a lot already since he got here in 1999, he said. 

“Hopefully, Richmond is smart enough to realize what makes it different and nurture that. You see murals by local painters on these new buildings. As long as you can continue that, and that scene continues to be nurtured, I think we have some momentum going,” he said. “We’re heading in the right direction.”