Fast Five Christina Villagomez: Tats are for girls
Meet Christina Villagomez, local tattoo artist, illustrator and amateur zookeeper. She is the co-owner of Electric Age Tattoo. Her shop recently hosted a toy/supply drive for Children’s Village - two full days of free tattoos in exchange for people bringing in toys for the kids and items on the Children’s Village needs list. They ended up collecting about 100 toys, 50 coats and 1,000 food and supply items.
When she’s not at the shop, you can usually find her at a variety of local art shows and events. This weekend she’ll have booths at the Emerge Holiday Market and Terrain’s BrrrZaar. If you’d like to check out her artwork, you can find her on Instagram @ starship_ink or her personal website, Starshipink.com.
Parental status:
“I don’t have any kids, but I do have two spoiled cats, a gang of hermit crabs and a baby Brazilian rainbow boa.”
Generation:
“My hatred of scrunchies and overalls pretty firmly rules me out of Gen X and Gen Z, so I’d say I’m a millennial.”
1. How long have you been an artist, and why did you decide to open a tattoo shop?
“I’ve been an artist my whole life, but I didn’t fall in love with tattooing until after I left college. I opened Electric Age with my business partner and former tattoo mentor, Jake Sifford, on November 1. We wanted to open a space that focuses on art first, while giving our clients a private and cozy experience. We’re in the historic Exchange Bank building on Sherman, so we hope our shop will pay respect to the rich history of the space while still bringing the best modern practices of our art form to the public.”
2. How do women fare in the tattoo world, which was once dominated by men?
“Before I started my apprenticeship, I heard so many horror stories about being a woman in my industry. I’m happy to say that so far I’ve actually been treated better by my male peers in this job than I have in some of the offices I’ve worked in the past. I can only speak about my personal experiences of course, but tattooing has changed so much even in the last decade. Sometimes I think being a woman is even an advantage with clients.”
3. What is the craziest/funniest/weirdest tattoo you have ever seen or done?
“One of my favorites was a guy who asked me to tattoo a monocle and top hat on his large, potato-shaped birthmark. It was so silly, but what a great idea.”
4. What is something people would be surprised to learn about you?
“Much like my hero Indiana Jones, I was named after a dog, but this dog was a champion show dog. So there’s that I guess.”
5. If you had any super power, what would it be and why?
“Teleportation, definitely’”