Cleveland Tattoo Expo: Review

Cleveland Tattoo Expo (July 13-15th): Review

by Joanna Wilson

It was a whirlwind of ink, art and new friends for the past three days at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland this past weekend. 

The booths were filled with tattoo artists and vendors from all over the country.

Rows and rows of booths covered the floor of the arena with tattoo shops and artists from all over the country.  There were also culture-related vendors selling interesting items.  If you're a tattoo artist, you could have shopped for new machines, papers and inks.  For the general public, there were vendors such as Ink Addict from Detroit selling tees and hoodies, Zombie Caricature artists, Burning River Roller Derby Girls, Jakprints printing company, and prints of tattoo art from nearly every artist there.

An artist from Ft. Wayne Indiana specializes in piping and lettering, selling these popular hand-painted humorous tattoo removal signs.

But the major attraction were the booths filled with tattoo artists eager to show off their skills.  It was good to see some familiar Akron Empire faces amongst the crowds.  Akron's own Good Life Tattoos and Piercings crew was there.  I got to meet Brent Vann, the newest full time artist now at Good Life. 

Good Life's John Rippey keeps busy on Saturday afternoon at the Expo.

It was also good to meet Eric Starr from Arkham Tattoo located on N. Main Street in Akron.  I have quite a few friends who get their tattoos at that shop.  It's always nice to put a name and a face to a shop I've heard so much about. 

At the Arkham Tattoo booth, Eric, standing, is busy talking to a client.

I also got to briefly say 'hello' to the guys at Art Bomb Tattoos--another local shop located in Massillon.  They were also kept busy all weekend.

The Massillon guys were so busy working I didn't want to disturb them for the photo!

When I was walking around, I bumped into a friend who is a tattoo artist who works in a Cleveland area shop.  He came to the Expo to get a tattoo from Krooked Ken, an artist he admires from Black Anchor Tattoos in Maryland. It says alot when a tattoo artist is willing to stand in line to wait for an out-of-town artist's work.  I went to the Expo looking to get a new tattoo as well.  I was looking for a woman to do my next piece and I met a very talented tattoo artist named Sarah from West Anchor Tattoo in Cleveland. 

Sarah hard at work on creating something special on the top of my foot.

A cool thing put together by the organizer is video footage from each of the three days during the Expo.  Check it out:







I can hardly wait for next year's Expo.  Some events in Northeast Ohio are so attractive, it's worth leaving the Akron Empire to check them out.  Will I see you there next year?

Check out Cleveland Tattoo Expo 2012 for the complete list of artists and vendor links.
Also: the Facebook page Cleveland Tattoo Expo for more recap information.