Tattooists rely on other artwork.
Tattoo artists closed for pandemic rely on other artwork to make ends meet
For nearly 16 years in San Antonio, Jason Casas has tattooed just about everything, from roses and mandalas on arms and legs to the Virgin Mary on a bald head and Darth Vader dueling Luke Skywalker on a guy’s ribs.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic holstered tattoo guns across the country.
Now Casas finds himself firing off different colorful works to help pay the bills — specifically woodcut magnets and watercolor paintings, which he markets on his Instagram account, @tattoosbyjaecasas.
“It’s just something to kind of get a little bit of change,” said Casas, who owns Iron Eagle Tattoos on the city’s far West Side.
These days, such change has been monetary as well as aesthetic.
Without the usual warm bodies walking in to the tattoo parlor, Casas and other tattoo artists have turned to other canvases to make ends meet, skipping the skin for epoxy-glazed woodcuts, acrylic paintings and other media.
A look at other San Antonio tattooists on Instagram shows Casas has quite the creative company.
Tattoo artist Trenton Helms ( @trentbottx) now crafts his lavish tattoo designs of women with liquid acrylics on parchment-like paper, while Nick Carreon (@nixmyth87) conjures snake-draped skulls and horned Japanese demon masks as vibrant digital prints. Meanwhile, David De La O (@butterkills) makes woodcuts and ink-jet giclée prints.
They really don’t have much of a choice. The Texas Department of State Health Services does not allow tattooing at home. And Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to issue a date for tattoo shops to reopen in Texas as part of his statewide reopening plan.
In late March, Mayor Ron Nirenberg ordered nonessential San Antonio businesses to close to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
Texas hair and nail salons got the go-ahead to reopen last week, while Texas gyms and office buildings can reopen starting Monday.
That has plenty of inkers irked across the state. On Tuesday, tattoo artists demonstrated outside the Capitol in Austin, and a couple of Texas tattoo shops reportedly reopened in defiance of government restrictions, which prohibit people from visiting tattoo and piercing studios.
“It’s a big loss (for tattoo shops), especially to the owners,” Casas said. “We’re selfemployed. Either we tattoo or we don’t get paid, unless you have your paintings or stuff to sell.”
For Casas, that started about two months ago with some medium-density fiberboard and acrylic paints, which he used to create a life-size woodcut magnet of an armadillo.
Happy with the results, Casas went on to craft a woodcut magnet called “Covid Rick,” a masked homage to the mad scientist from the hit cartoon series “Rick and Morty.” Casas posted the Rick magnet on Instagram and sold it faster than you could say “wubba lubba dub dub.”
He has since whipped up woodcut magnets that include Vader’s lightsaber and a work he calls “Sacred Ojo,” a heart with a weeping eye at its center. Casas also finished a couple of framed watercolors: one of a classic Polaroid instant camera and another of a pair of praying hands.
“They’re just stuff that I wanted to paint,” Casas said. “Just little ideas that I get.”
Another San Antonio tattoo artist has gotten really creative with what she works with.
Annika Case specializes in stick-and-poke tattooing, a machine-free method that brings an image to life dot by dot. When the coronavirus closed her down, Case turned to working on orange peels.
“It’s been really fun,” said Case, who said the orange peels make a good practice surface for tackling bigger and more compli
“Either we tattoo or we don’t get paid, unless you have your paintings or stuff to sell.”
— Jason Casas, tattooist
cated stick-and-poke designs. “I’m taking risks that I wouldn’t have taken.”
Highlights include cartoon characters Velma from the “Scooby-Doo” franchise and Rosie the Robot from “The Jetsons.”
Case doesn’t sell her orangepeel works, but she does consider the peel sessions a good marketing tool on her Instagram account @pin_and_pencil, which she said practically doubles as her portfolio.
She said it’s a hard time for tattooists, but she’s lucky because her partner is an inventory manager for a Texas-based
auto dealership. And as much as she misses the money from tattooing, she especially misses the interaction with clients.
“It’s really fun to make something for somebody and get to share in that collaborative process,” she said. “That emotional human connection … for me makes it really special.”
Casas said he also feels the loss of the emotional payoff to tattooing, but he mostly misses the payday. He’s only sold a handful of his woodcut magnets, and he makes less money on those than he does tattoos, which start at $60 at his shop.
Both also expressed a common complaint of tattoo artists unable to work during the pandemic: that they work in one of the cleanest and most hygienic
industries in the nation and have long adhered to strict safety guidelines.
“We’re always disinfecting and cleaning,” Casas said, noting that tattooists also wear singleuse disposable gloves and never use the same sanitized needles twice. “I don’t see what more we could do.”
Aside from creating other artistic means of income, about the only thing Casas and other tattooists can do is wait.
Which may be why his latest woodcut couldn’t be more fitting, even if it is too big to fit on the fridge. It’s a colorful bird over a flower-framed banner with the word “HOPE.”