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This weekend, there’s an opportunity for New Mexico to get tattooed by some of the greatest artists in the country, plain and simple. Brian Everett, who owns Route 66 Tattoo on Central Ave., organized this year’s New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta at the Albuquerque Convention Center, and he says if you get tatted this year, you’re getting it done by the best of the best. By establishing a good reputation over 13 years, the folks at Albuquerque’s biggest annual tattoo convention really do get to pick and choose who’s gonna be showing off their skills at the event. Featured artists such as Freddy Negrate, Oliver Peck and Tommy Montoya will be painting Burque red — and black and white, and every brilliant color imaginable — in permanent ink over three days, starting this Friday. Normally you would have to go across the country and pay for hotel bills and airfare to get tattooed by these artists, and now they’re right here in Burque’s backyard.
This year’s event is dedicated to “the loving memory of Jack Rudy,” whom Everett calls his mentor. He remembers some career-changing advice he once received from Rudy.
“He said, ‘You draw so beautifully, why don’t you tattoo like you draw?’ It was kind of like I separated the two,” Everett says. “I didn’t know whether to tell him thank you or screw you. I had created a blockage in my own mind, and the truth was, why didn’t I [tattoo like I draw]? I started applying those same skills that I put in a portrait to drawing in a tattoo, and it became kind of my claim to fame.”
Everett says this year’s event also honors the memory of his close friend John “Bael” Sisneros, the man who started the New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta. Sisneros owned Por Vida Tattoo, where he was shot and killed last November. He was 41.
“He was a visionary,” Everett says. “It’s all about how you look at life, and he saw big things. When he opened up Por Vida, it was a Maytag warehouse. It had holes in the ceiling, and it was this huge building, and I said,’ What are you going to do with this Bael?’ He said, ‘I’m going to make the coolest tattoo shop you’ve ever seen.’ And it really is. It’s an amazing place. He did everything he told me he was going to do. He has left a big hole in all of our hearts, and it’s going to be a difficult convention. It’s going to be bittersweet. It brings us all together, but the bitterness is that he’s not there to share it with us.”
A big crowd of people will be either getting tattoos or doing tattoos this year, so the Tattoo Fiesta will bring the entertainment right to them. Entertainers like dancer Cervena Fox will be performing right in the aisles. And musical guests such as DJ Topo Chica will be playing old-school tunes and spinning brand new jams the weekend. Tattoo of the Day contests will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and two Best of Show contests with different categories (Best Color Tattoo and Best Black and Gray) will crown the event’s top tats.
Skin in the Game
If anyone is an authority qualified to give an accurate history of the tattoo community in Albuquerque, it’s Everett. The guy couldn’t have much more experience than he does, and he’s watched the scene grow from its humble underground beginnings to the thriving tattoo town it is today. He’s been tattooing in the Duke City for over 50 years, 39 of them at Route 66 Tattoo on Central. He says he remembers a time when he was pretty much the only dude in town with a tattoo parlor. In fact, he says, tattooing was illegal within the Albuquerque city limits when he got his start in the early ‘70s. His parents lent him $1,500 to open his first shop on Fourth and Alameda, and he made $400 the first week. His dad, the nuclear engineer, decided Everett’s tattoo ambitions were genius. During a transitional period, Everett was tattooing out at an office building in an industrial park on Osuna — well within city limits — when he got some good fortune in the form of court papers from the city’s zoning people, and the rest is history.
“I was the only shop in town for a number of years,” Everett recalls. “I was out there so that they wouldn’t find me — because I had already known that they had a law against tattooing at that point — so I was just kind of hanging out there. Well, when they came and found me and told me to move to a C2 zone, that’s exactly where I wanted to be, so I’ve been here ever since.”
Everett says they had to fight pretty hard to get the prohibitive tattoo law changed back in the day. He hired the state epidemiologist and, along with Noah Babcock from Evolution Body Piercing, sat down with him and came up with some workable regulations for tattooing in the city, which were later adapted for the state of New Mexico. They put together a Tattoo Guild, hit City Hall to get the law changed and as we all know, succeeded in their mission.
“Everybody put on their Sunday best, and when they said, ‘Will the members of the tattoo community, please stand up?’ there was kind of an [exclamation of surprise] in the room because [everyone] thought they were sitting next to other people from neighborhood associations or something. They had no idea that there were so many people in the business over there to help pass the ordinance to get it legal in Albuquerque. So it passed with flying colors, and since then it’s just kind of gone crazy. Eventually I attended a lot of conventions — actually, around the world.”
“It Sounds a little Archaic Now, Doesn’t It?”
Even little old ladies liked to “take a walk on the wild side” back in the day from time to time, but Everett says, before his shop and others started blowing up, tattooing had been known as a ‘black eye business.’
“It was the type of business they associated with drunken sailors and bikers. That was a connotation that went along with tattooing — not that that was actually the case.”
The people who came into the shop were your average blue collar-type of folks. Sometimes Everett would sit there and not do a tattoo for three or four days. If a car club came in, he’d tattoo until six in the morning. He’s done just about any kind of tattoo you can imagine — the Blessed Mother on a priest, ink on politicians — and he says there’s no universal tattoo archetype anymore. Tattooing ties into countless forms of mainstream art. For example, many automotive artists know who the big names are in tattooing, because they all work together at car shows. He remembers showing up early to a Beatnicks Car Club meeting days before the rest of his crew arrived.
“The first time I worked with a bunch of pin stripers was in New York,” he says. “I said I don’t know how to pin stripe and they said, ‘No, but you know how to draw.’ I would draw designs on a bowling pin or a skateboard, or whatever it was, and I’d pass it to the next guy. He’d work on it a little bit, and he’d pass it to the next guy, and by the time it went through 10 hands, it was an incredible piece of artwork, and they would auction it off for charity. That’s a cool thing to be involved in. It was a crossover for me. I was jumping in their world.”
Unity Within the Ink Community
“In the old days, there really was a rivalry between shops, and I think, now, that game has kind of changed,” Everett says. “There’s probably some people that still feel that way, but I think if you do good work and you have good business ethics, there’s no reason to worry about anybody else.”
He says that, like the current state of the business, most of the artists in town celebrate each other’s work. But a little healthy competition is always good, especially for the customer. Once other tattoo shops started popping up over the years, he had to pay a little bit more attention to things such as customer service and pricing. But there’s a trade off: He’s concerned about oversaturation of the market in 2025, something that might cast a little shade on the tattoo community’s otherwise bright future. With close to 200 tattoo shops in Albuquerque today, it can be hard to figure out who’s got the best skills, another reason to hit the Tattoo Fiesta. These artists didn’t travel to mess around. They are competing in contests and for bragging rights, but more importantly, they’re earning national street cred. And you can be a part of the project.
“They’re bringing their A game, that’s a fact,” Everett says. “It does educate the public, because a lot of times they think they can just go in any shop and get a good tattoo. And that’s not the case. There’s different people that bring a whole different realm of talent to the process. And so the convention opens their eyes to what is truly possible.”
Tattoos aren’t just a part of the mainstream these days, Everett says the art form has become a part of New Mexico’s identity, a form of self-expression that is unique to each region.
“If you’re a New Mexican, you know the culture. You eat the food, you love the music. So I think what we try to do at the Tattoo Fiesta is kind of show off our culture. You go through some cities, they all look the same. It all has the same vibe. New Mexico has something very special and unique, and it’s one of the things that I love so much about it. It gives us a chance to shine with the culture that we have here.”
From Client to Performer: DJ Topo Chica
Lluvia Silva is one of the attendees who takes advantage of the talent available at the Tattoo Fiesta. This will be her fourth time making the trip north to Albuquerque for the show, and she says she’s on the hunt for some new ink to add to the canvas that runs from her collar bone to her wrists. Silva goes by DJ Topo Chica these days and says she chose the name because it’s kinda funny, a little bit silly and refers to something small and cute, just like herself. She worked in an El Paso tattoo shop called Sun City in her 20s, but she’s not attending the show as a tattoo artist, or an enthusiast. This Friday marks her first year performing as a DJ and song selector, and for someone so small, the set will pack a very big catalogue, with a mix of traditional and modern genres. She says there’s a big connection between tattoos and other art forms. She says music and tattooing are both ceremonial and, like a good tattoo gun, she’s rolling out clean needles and equipment to blast the cumbias while you tough out the pain.
“Last year, I got tattooed by my favorite artist ever,” she says. “And it was just a walk-up experience. I asked if she had availability, and she did. Usually you’d have to be on a wait list for these kinds of opportunities.”
Topo Chica says a lot of the artists have likely been preparing year round for this convention, and if she does end up getting a tattoo this year, she’d like to get something like a beautiful Chicano art piece by artist Matt Pardo of Paradise Creations and Black Heart Tattoo in San Francisco.
“I am really into the nostalgia of Mexican culture, because I grew up in El Paso, but I did spend some of my childhood in Zacatecas where there’s music everywhere,” she says. “Even at funerals. We would walk from the person’s home where we would pay our respects, and then walk them down to the cemetery. And there was always a band walking with us. So there’s music for any celebration.”
Today Topo Chica is a New Mexican living in Las Cruces. She also knows a bit about the vinyl game in Burque — one of her favorite record stores of all time is Longhair Records. She works with immigration advocacy centers in El Paso, standing up for the rights of people who belong to the culture that pushed her “to make Topo Chica happen.” She says, just like any art form, tattooing is political, and the artists at the convention will be using their craft as a platform. She says many of the artists she follows who will be tattooing at the show — especially the Chicano/a artists— will be making art that raises awareness about human rights violations happening in the Southwest right now.
“We’re not just pretending that everything’s okay, because people are suffering, and it’s not okay,” she says. “And I think [the Tattoo Fiesta] is an accepting space. Especially now, I feel like it would be crazy if it wasn’t.”
Common Bonds
Everett wants everyone to know that the convention is about unity. Unity between the old-school underground artists who paved the way and the hottest new artists showing off some of the most remarkable skills and techniques in the game today. Unity between shops like Route 66 and Por Vida, who are putting on the show as a joint venture. He wants everyone to know the 13th Annual Tattoo Fiesta celebrates the life of world-renowned artists such as Jack Rudy and remembers the locals who passed but their legacies live on through the festival.
“Bael was one of the best partners I’ve ever had,” he says. “Normally, it’s the old man teaching the young man, and with him, it was as much the young man teaching the old man.”
One-day passes to the New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta will run you $30, and weekend passes are $50. For all the info you need including tickets, featured and attending tattoo artists, other entertainers, contest info and more visit newmexicotattoofiesta.com. The page contains a link to the Bael Sisneros Foundation charity organization.
If you hit up the New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta on Instagram, you’ll find a ton of artists’ profiles and can cruise their online content to find your perfect tattoo match. There are dozens of posts with extras, such as special deals on tickets while the promotions last.
Check out DJ Topo Chica on Instagram. She will be doing her first recorded set with the worldwide music app NTS Radio in late July.
13th Annual New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta
July 11, 1 p.m. – July 13, 7 p.m.
Albuquerque Convention Center
401 Second St. NW
(Note: this year’s Tattoo Fiesta has been moved from its originally scheduled location at Isleta Resort & Casino.)
$30 – $50