The Evergreen Tattoo Invitational is an annual event bringing out talented tattoo artists across the country and locally. The event ran from March 15-17 and was held at the Lane Events Center.
Mark Mullins started his tattoo apprenticeship three years ago in January 2021. He currently works at Parlour Tattoo located at 1097 Willamette Street.
“I was always drawing and painting as a kid, but learning how to draw and paint to make tattoos work is a completely different animal,” Mullins said.
Mullins moved from Pennsylvania to Eugene seven years ago. He was working an office job before he decided to save up enough money to go to tattoo school and get certified in the state of Oregon.
“It was a hard jump from making money, to not making money to making money again,” Mullins said.
The laws about tattooing and tattoo apprenticeship in Oregon are stricter than in Mullins’s home state. This requires artists to take an educational program during their apprenticeship before they can be certified.
These educational programs can often miss the mark on what skills artists hope to acquire. Mullins said there are pros and cons to the Oregon tattooing school system, and a lot of it is based on the teacher. On one hand, it can help train artists on business practices and safety practices, but many tattoo schools exploit the system.
“Some people are straight up ignored when in their apprenticeship. They hand people thousands of dollars and they don’t get any instruction at all,” Mullins said. “I was kind of fed to the wolves in my apprenticeship. It was sink or swim, and I swam.”
Mullins has a variety of styles on his flash sheets and portfolio, but he has his favorites to draw.
“I love to tattoo traditional imagery and cubism. Weird tattoos that make you scratch your head and tilt your eyes a little bit,” he said.
The Parlour Tattoo has a reputation for being a safe and reliable tattoo shop. The shop has been open in Eugene since 1996.
“Come on by The Parlour Tattoo for a good time. And a tattoo you won’t hate when you’re 50,” Mullins said.
Kira X. Maddox started tattooing less than a year ago. She currently works at Out of Step Tattoo & Gallery where she has spent the past four months tattooing and six months before that going through her apprenticeship.
“Art has always been a fundamental part of who I am and what I’ve done,” Maddox said. “I think a lot of us are told, you know, never turn your hobbies into work because you will start to resent them, but then you realize that you never have time to actually do what you really love to do.”
Maddox was already creating art and started tattooing by taking commissioned tattoo designs. It didn’t take her long to decide to cut out the middleman and start tattooing her designs herself.
“They come back to me with a tattoo done and I’m like, ‘I would have done it differently,’” she said.
Maddox has a hard time putting the type of art she makes in a box.
“It’s kind of like a darker mythological illustrative art,” she said. “I was that kid that I loved, like mythology. I loved dragons, dinosaurs and animals. So that was a big inspiration for what I like to draw.”
Maddox said she hopes to continue tattooing for a long time and use what she learns to continue to expand her style.
“I’m constantly pulling from different styles and letting myself be open to branching out and not just sticking to one,” she said.
These two artists are a few among a long list of talented tattoo artists at the Evergreen Tattoo Invitational. Make sure to check them out at their respective shop locations, websites and Instagrams below.
The Parlour Tattoo: 1097 Willamette St.
Website: https://www.theparlourtattoo.com/
Mullins’s Instagram: @discomark_
Out of Step Tattoo & Gallery: 1022 Willamette St
Website: https://www.oostattoo.com/
Maddox’s Instagram: @kirax.art
